Italian conductor to join Hanoi concert

The Subscription Concert vol.71 of Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra will take place at Hanoi Opera House on June 25 and 26 under baton of Famous Italian conductor Andrea Pestalozza.

The concert will feature great works by worldwide famous composers, including Reverie for Orchestra E major op.24 composed by Alexander Scriabin, Prelude and

Liebestod from Opera “Tristan und Isolde” by Richard Wagner and Symphony no.2 D-major Op.73 by Johannes Brahms.

Born in Milan, Pestalozza began his musical career as a pianist and percussionist before starting his second career as a conductor with the Ensemble Orfeo which he

founded. His repertoire ranges from Classical and Romantic eras to contemporary music which he is an impassioned scholar.

He has worked with many prestigious orchestras and recognized institutions in Paris, Rome, Berlin, Moscow, Venice, Lisboa, Bologna, Ferrara, Milan, Turin and Olso.

Tickets are priced at VND500,000, VND350,000 and VND200,000 per person and available at Hanoi Opera House at 1 Trang Tien Street in Hanoi. Students just pay

VND100,000 for admission. For free ticket delivery, call 091 348 9858 or 098 306 7996.

French artist shares arts inspiration with public

French artist Truc-Anh will lecture at a workshop at Galerie Quynh at 6:30 p.m. on June 18 to inspire visitors to speak out their own feelings and creativeness.

The talk will focus on major themes in his solo exhibition ‘oNiReaKHoWaRiGNoRaLiSMe’ which is on at the gallery until July 19 and some of the stories that have inspired his works.

With a creative practice that reflects a dizzying world of sensorial memories and dreams, Truc-Anh makes works full of paradoxes between representation and abstraction, jubilation and despair, affirmation and doubt, composition and all over painting.

Truc-Anh seeks beauty not through the harmony of forms but through emotional engagement, vulnerability, autobiographical stories and construction of personal mythology.

During the talk, the artist will encourage the audience to play an active role in sharing their own interpretations.

Born in 1983 in Paris, Truc-Anh studied at École Boulle, École Supérieure des Arts Appliqués, Paris, at ECAL, Haute École d’Art et de Design, Lausanne, Switzerland, and La Cambre, École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels, Brussels, Belgium.

Throughout his career, he has worked in a variety of media, including painting, photography, video, drawing, sculpture and performance. He has exhibited in several group exhibitions in Europe.  The artist now lives and works between HCMC and Paris.

Truc-Anh’s paintings are rich in overlapping tales, juxtaposed to create an enigmatic, greater narrative that functions like a puzzle. His stories do not follow a chronological or linear structure but rather a circular one, almost viciously so that his imagery has the power of confounding and questioning reason, challenging the viewer’s knowledge.

Admission is free. The talk will be conducted in English with a Vietnamese translation. Galerie Quynh, is located at 65 De Tham Street, HCMC’s District 1.

Hoang Anh connects loved ones in paintings

The Connection is the name of a solo exhibition which Hue-based artist Hoang Anh has opened at New Space Arts Foundation to feature oil paintings on canvas, installation and performance.

The show is a story about the artist’s life depicted via relationships with family members and friends. Therefore, on display are portraits of the artist’s beloved faces linked together like a genealogy.

“Life is an endless cycle of birth, maturity and death. When a human being stops to exist, other human beings are born into the world to start the cycle all over again. This is a connection,” said Anh.

“People are born from the same ancestors, regardless of their social status, destinies or countries. They are connected by the same blood. Each of them in their own generation contributes to push the wheel of life forward. While people use family annals or a family tree to record the connection between family members, I choose to paint.”

To the artist, the exhibition shows his love and respect for all his relationships. “All is aimed at connecting people together, not only relatives but also all art enthusiasts,” he said.

The exhibition runs until June 23 at the gallery, 15 Le Loi in Hue City.

Artists bring ‘Laotian Wind’ to city

Six artists from central Vietnam are displaying 19 oil paintings on the theme of ‘Laotian Wind’ at Tu Do Gallery in HCMC.

The works by artists Ho Van Hung, Tran The Vinh, Truong The Linh, Nguyen An, Vu Duy Tan and Nguyen Van Tung show their perceptions and voices over social issues as well as the beauties of life and nature.

An said that life was beautiful but it was not always easy at all. “My paintings reflect the stress in modern life, pains and sadness of youngsters,” An said and added that red was used to depict pressure of life and the too many worries people faced every day.

Vinh used the image of horses to illustrate a human being-and-nature dialogue, the existence of real and fake things.

Meanwhile, to Hung, life is a joyful melody and this can be felt through his‘Tree and Sun’ work.

Tung used colorful chords and abstraction to paint his anxiety and wild dreams while beloved people were the main inspiration of Tam’s paintings. The paintings of Linh, the first winner of Dogma Prize 2013, are the portraits of him at work.

The exhibition runs until June 26 at the gallery, 53 Ho Tung Mau in HCMC’s District 1.

Agtex28 unveils new summer collection

“Nhiet doi” (tropical) is a new summer collection of the fashion brand Belluni that 28 Corporation (Agtex 28) has just launched at its 35th store in HCMC.

The corporation used special cloth to have items of the latest collection tailored, including the bamboo fabric made from cellulose fiber of bamboo trees to prevent the cloth from wrinkling and protect users from ultraviolet and bacterium.

Nguyen Van Can, head of the research and development department at Agtex 28, said that the corporation planned to open four more fashion shops at big supermarkets and department stores in HCMC, Danang and Hanoi by the end of this year.

Agtex28 aims to sell more than VND400 billion worth of over 600,000 Belluni products this year.

VTV director nets France’s National Order of Merit

Tran Binh Minh, director of Vietnam Television (VTV), on Tuesday afternoon received the National Order of Merit from French Ambassador in Vietnam, Jean-Noël Poirier, in Hanoi.

Minh was honored for his contribution to the development of local television industry and help boost relations between Vietnam and France. Vietnam Television and Canal France International had joint training courses and cooperation activities. A fruitful achievement came out when VTV6, the channel for local youth, had a dramatic increase in ratings. VTV is also a partner of France’s Canal+ for K+ satellite television service.

“It is only the cooperation between VTV and Canal + but also a cooperation between the two countries. Despite lots of difficulties this joint product so far has had some remarkable achievements,” said Tran Binh Minh in his speech at the event in Hanoi.

The National Order of Merit is an Order of State with membership (about 2,500 members) awarded by the President of the French Republic. It was founded on December 3, 1963 by President Charles de Gaulle.

The award is at lower level than the Legion of Honor or the National Order of the Legion of Honor, established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802.

Brooklyn-based multimedia artist to talk to art enthusiasts

Chitra Ganesh, a Brooklyn-based multimedia artist currently working in New Delhi, will give two lectures at Hoa Sen University on June 20 and 24. The event is part of the program ‘Encounter’ - a three-year cultural lecture series initiated by San Art.

The first lecture themed ‘Architectures of myth’ will explore the power of key visual and storytelling devices as well as mythological narrative and their particular ongoing

legacy in contemporary visual and popular culture. The artist will begin at the architecture of the grand epics of classical Eastern and Western traditions, such as stories of Homer’s Odyssey, the Ramayana and the Monkey King.

She will also look at images drawn from contemporary modes of storytelling to illuminate how ancient mythic architectures persist in the language of comics and graphic

novels and how they are transformed in contemporary visual forms. She will make the ideas clearer with examples such as the Amar Chitra Katha and Raj comics originating in India, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series and the graffiti and science fictional tales Battlestar Galactica.

The second lecture ‘Visualizing absence’ will consider how contemporary art practices take up the problem of visualizing absence by archiving and creating around social

and political erasure. Ganesh will inspire artists and visitors to identify and respond to stories, social histories, and conflicts which they experience as crucial to their understanding of our own history, nation, or family, but yet seem difficult to extract from the public domain, or remain mysteriously absent from official records.

Ganesh graduated from Brown University with a BA in Comparative Literature and Art-Semiotics, and received her MFA from Columbia University in 2002. Her drawings, installations, text-based works, and collaborations seek to excavate and circulate buried narratives typically excluded from official canons of history, literature and art.

Ganesh’s works have been widely exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Shanghai), Brooklyn Museum of Art, Museum voorModerneKunst (Netherlands), ZKM(Germany), Royal College of Art (London), Prince of Wales Museum (Mumbai) and KunsthalleExnergrasse (Norway).

She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a 2012 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in the Creative Arts.

Admission is free. The event will be conducted in English and Vietnamese translation will be provided.

The first lecture will take place from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on June 20 at Room NZ903 on the ninth floor at the university, 8 Nguyen Van Trang Street in HCMC’s District 1.

The second lecture will occur from 6:30 p.m to 8:30 p.m. on June 24 at Room NZ507 on the fifth floor at the university.

Exhibition to affirm national sovereignty over Hoang Sa, Truong Sa archipelagoes

An exhibition of 55 art works by 50 artists on Vietnam’s sea and island sovereignty is set to open on June 18 at 29 Hang Bai Street, Hanoi.

Among the artists are such famous painters and sculptors as Thanh Chuong, Dang Xuan Hoa, Dinh Quan, Pham Luan, Dao Hai Phong, Le Tri Dung and Hoang Phuong Vy.

Vietnam has lodged strong complaints in response to China’s illegal placement of the Haiyang Shiyou 981 within Vietnam’s continental shelf and exclusive economic zone.

It has not only raised protest locally, but has also garnered strong reactions from the international community. Together with people nationwide, the exhibited artists strongly decry China’s blatant act through their latest works about the East Sea.

The exhibition is seen as a significant event—showing patriotism, conveying a peaceful message to people nationwide and peace-lovers around the world, and affirming the strength of Vietnam’s great national unity and the country’s sovereignty over Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagoes.

115 works win 8th National Press Awards 2013

115 works were honored at the announcement ceremony of the 8th National Press Awards 2013 took place in Hanoi on June 16.

The National Press Awards Council offered 8 A prizes, 27 B prizes, 41 C prizes and 39 encouragement awards.

Sai Gon Giai Phong Newspaper won one C prize and an encouragement award for reports titled Thu xuan gui bien dao (Spring letters to Islands) by Kieu Phan and Thu Nam; and Song Sai Gon-Dong Nai dang chet (Sai Gon- Dong Nai rivers on verge of death) by To Nguyen, Minh Xuan, Minh Hai and Ai Van.

The organization board received 1,665 entries from almost all media agencies across the country – the highest figure since its first began in 2006.

The award ceremony will be held in Hanoi on June 21 to mark the 89th anniversary of Vietnam’s Revolutionary Press Day.

Hoang Sa, Truong Sa exhibition opens in Thai Binh

An exhibition of historical evidence proving Vietnam’s sovereignty over Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos opened in the northern province of Thai Binh on June 17.

On display are a wide range of ancient maps and atlases, and documents in traditional Chinese, Vietnamese and French languages issued by Vietnamese feudal states and a French researcher from the 15 th to the 20 th century. All declare Vietnam’s sovereignty over the two archipelagoes.

Notably, eight maps issued by the Chinese people under the Qing dynasty and the Republic of China are being displayed at the event. Many of the documents, which were announced worldwide in the 16 th century, indicate the fact that these islands did not historically belong to China.

Six collections of atlases, selected and issued by Belgian geographer P.Vandermaelen in 1827, show Vietnam’s sovereignty over both archipelagoes. The exhibition also features a number of official documents from the Nguyen dynasty (1802-1945).

Several art performances and film screenings aimed to encourage the national pride of local people will take place during the two-day exhibition.

Kim Dong Publishing House launches first e-book library

The first ever e-book library from the Kim Dong Publishing House was launched in Ha Noi yesterday with the aim of promoting reading.

The library was set up by the publishing house that specialises in children's books and the Vinapo Online Service Company for mobile devices internationally.

Initially, registered members can access 58 titles of books, stories and magazines in the library. The number is expected to increase to over 400 after a year.

Till September 5, the e-books will be free to use, after which the members will pay about VND40,000 (roughly US$2) per month. Each account is allowed access with five smartphones at the same time.

The e-book library is to mark the 57th anniversary of the establishment of the publisher.

Ethnic festival highlights national sovereignty

A traditional festival will kick off at the Culture Tourism Village of Vietnamese Ethnic Groups in Son Tay Town on the outskirts of Ha Noi on June 28, focusing on national seas, islands and sovereignty.

Over 200 people from 32 ethnic groups in eight provinces and cities, and ethnic students who are studying in Ha Noi and the Central Highlands will take part in the two-day festival.

The climax of the festival will be a performance on the opening day broadcast live in Viet Nam Television's channels 1, 4 and 5.

Other activities will include Cham group's sea genie worshipping ceremony from the southern province of Ninh Thuan; the Feast and Commemoration rituals for Hoang Sa sea soldiers from the central province of Quang Ngai and a fish worshipping ceremony from the central city of Da Nang.

An exhibition displaying documents, books and photos on the border, island and the nation's sovereignty will be held during the festival.

Writing contest on the 1975 Spring Offensive launched

A writing contest themed Xuan 1975, ban hung ca toan thang ( The Spring 1975- a complete victory) has been launched by the Vietnam War Veterans Association on June 16.

The competition launched for war veteran aims to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1975 Spring Offensive.

Submissions have a maximum of 2500 words and can be sent to Vietnam War Veteran Newspaper at 1 Le Van Linh in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem District by January 31, 2015.

The award ceremony will be held on April 30, 2015.

Literature and Arts Theory and Criticism Council debuts

The Council for the Theory and Criticism of Literature and Arts made its debut in Hanoi on June 16 as a consultant agency for Vietnam Union of Literature and Arts Associations (VULAA).

The council has 28 members who are chairpersons of central literature and arts associations, researchers and critics working in the field.

The council is designed to provide the VULAA Presidium with updates on the development of literature and arts and promote Party’s guidelines in the fields.

It was also assigned to boost the production of high-quality literary works, which are expected to truthfully reflect the breath of life and national construction and defence, while contributing to building an advanced Vietnamese culture.

Professor To Ngoc Thanh was assigned as the council’s Chairman, while poet Huu Thinh, and writers Do Kim Cuong and Tung Dien were named as Vice Chairmen.

The council's action plan for 2014 was announced at the launch, including the organisation of a nationwide seminar themed ‘Literature – Arts in relation to Social Ethics’, which is scheduled for August.

Hoang Sa, Truong Sa exhibition opens in Thai Binh

An exhibition of historical evidence proving Vietnam’s sovereignty over Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagoes opened in the northern province of Thai

Binh on June 17.

On display are a wide range of ancient maps and atlases, as well as documents in traditional Chinese, Vietnamese and French languages issued by the Vietnamese feudal

states and a French researcher from the 15th to the 20th century. All declare Vietnam’s sovereignty over the two archipelagoes.

Notably, eight maps issued by the Chinese people under the Qing dynasty and the Republic of China are being displayed at the event. Many of the documents, which were

announced worldwide in the 16th century, indicate the fact that these islands have not historically belonged to China.

Six collections of atlases selected and issued by Belgian geographer P. Vandermaelen in 1827 show Vietnam’s sovereignty over both archipelagoes. The exhibition also

features a number of official documents from the Nguyen dynasty (1802–1945).

Several art performances and film screenings took place to encourage the national pride of local people will take place during the two-day exhibition.