Words Cannot Express.(The Arts)(performance art in Vietnam)

Byline: Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop

In Vietnam, performance art is gaining favor as a way to push boundaries while evading censorship.

At first glance, the little red scarf that Vietnamese performance artist Tran Luong is snapping through the air appears innocent enough. But for some members of his Vietnamese and Chinese audiences, it brings back memories from primary school, when they wore scarves just like it in recognition of their support for communism. Tran Luong, 47, still remembers with mixed feelings being the last boy of his class to get one--something of a worry for his parents. As the performance progresses, the Hanoi-based artist invites the audience to participate by taking the scarf and whipping his bare torso. The repeated action eventually leaves deep red imprints on his skin. "They might be timid at first, but actually when they see the red on my body, they do more, like a wild person waking up," he says, describing the reaction to "Welt," which he has performed in Beijing and Ho Chi Minh City this year. "I think the red makes people think."

And that is not something readily encouraged by the artistic censors in Vietnam. Performance art is still largely viewed as a decadent, foreign art form, far removed from the classical values of the academic beaux-arts painting style favored by Vietnam's cultural police. But in recent years, the genre has been steadily gaining ground. Because of its inherent mobility and fleeting nature--the artist needs few materials and can perform the impromptu work anywhere--Vietnamese artists have been using performance art to quietly push the boundaries of acceptable social and political commentaries while avoiding the censor's watchful eye. "As a form of expression, performance's ephemeral nature offers visibility to a wide audience but invisibility to the authorities," says Nora Taylor, the author of several books on Vietnamese art and a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Indeed, censorship of the arts remains rife in Vietnam. Major art projects and exhibitions need official permits from the cultural police, and shows can be shut down with no warning. Last year an installation by Truong Tan, involving a giant diaper lined with pockets resembling those worn by traffic police officers--a reference to the absorbent pockets of corrupt officers--was abruptly removed from an exhibition at the Goethe-Institut in Hanoi. But performance art, which remains primarily "underground" in Vietnam, is much harder to control. Performances often happen ...