Cause and effect

A Danforth exhibit captures
Ho Chi Minh and his legacy

by Leon Nigrosh

AN ARTIST'S PORTRAIT OF HO CHI MINH; THE WALL; AND CONTEMPORARY VIETNAMESE ART
at the Danforth Museum of Art, 123 Union Avenue, Framingham, through November 26.

It was just 25 years ago that the last American helicopter clattered away from Saigon, marking the end of the physical presence of US troops in Vietnam -- but leaving an emotional hole in the soul of an entire country that has yet to be healed. The Danforth Museum of Art deserves a great deal of credit for mounting three exhibitions that deal head on with the issues of Vietnam from differing viewpoints. Newton artist C. David Thomas recalls September 2, 1969, as the day he hoisted a bottle of Jack Black in his "in-country hooch" to toast the death of Ho Chi Minh -- in his mind, a Commie dictator, evil Hitler, and all-around bad guy. Almost two decades later, Thomas returned to Vietnam and "fell in love with the Vietnamese and their culture." Since then, he has devoted countless hours to attempting to find out who Ho Chi Minh really was and what his goals were -- and to share what he's learned through an artist's book and a series of large mixed-media works on paper.

In one dramatically lit gallery at the Danforth, 42 portraits of Ho Chi Minh mounted edge to edge look impassively down at us as if to say, "Do you know who I am?" Thomas has seamlessly collaged lithographed images, stamps, silk, and rice paper to present the many aspects of the Vietnamese patriot. In one work we can see the ghostly visage of George Washington on Ho's forehead; in another, the faces of Marx and Lenin -- all of whom were held in high esteem by Ho Chi Minh himself. Other portrayals contain pictures of Ho's family, assorted cartoons of Asian characters, and newspaper clippings, with each 20x26-inch page liberally covered with oil crayon and snippets of Chinese letters and English text. Curiously, there is no French, under whose thumb the Vietnamese struggled for years.

Through these images, Thomas hopes to "spark curiosity about one of the most important figures in American and world history who sought to liberate his country from foreign aggressors." Each color-charged sheet tells its own story; together, they form a fortified collaboration of illustrations and ideas about a man who, for better or worse, changed a country.

To augment his Vietnam show, Thomas delved into his personal collection and lent the museum 50 artworks by contemporary Vietnamese artists working in modern and traditional techniques. Dao Minh Tri, a master of lacquer painting, has covered three 24x48-inch panels with deep layers of black and red to create an interpretation of semi-abstract sea creatures floating across a rich layer of crinkled gold. It's interesting to note that, unlike other Asian cultures, Vietnamese have used this 1000-year old technique only for wall pieces and never for functional objects.

Phung Pham offers an exquisite woodcut on paper of a young woman in a Japanese-style kimono lightly poised on a bamboo chair. The apparently effortless cutting exposes a spare pattern on the clothing that contrasts with the single-inked block of black -- an image of simplicity itself. Compare this to Ten Tai Pham's woodcut on do (mulberry) paper, Ben Tam. Adhering to traditional techniques, the artist has developed an active, colorful surface depicting a family scampering over three moored fishing boats, playing, walking a dog, bathing, and feeding.

Several artists show their agility in silk painting. Nguyen The Minh lets the weave of the silk add a misty feel to a scene of three girls waiting for something in Minority Village, while Phan Cam Thuong creates flat patterns of color from handmade pigments painted onto silk. In an untitled 24x36-inch illustration, we witness a group of priests and followers arranged in a composition of saffron and black with touches of red. Can you find the nude lady?

Working in a newer Western medium, Le Minh Truong's 1990 black-and-white photograph, The River Girls, is notable not only for its active scene of two girls hauling a large fishnet onto their sampan, but for the added sense of drama he incorporated by taking the picture from inside the boat's thatched bamboo enclosure. And Trinh Kim Vinh used modern lithography to reproduce his patriotic Female Soldier Stands Guard Near the Sea, made shortly after the last American ground troops had departed Vietnam.

A third gallery houses 43 color photographs by Jamaica Plain's Sal Lopes. Each of the pictures documents a moment of activity at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. Images of tearful men in their camo BDUs pointing to, saluting, or touching a name on the wall; saddened relatives looking lost; bits of memorabilia stuffed into the wall seams; and close-ups of some of the etched names all offer a glimpse of the ever-changing scene -- but without dates or titles. One impressive shot shows puffy clouds in a sunny sky and a glistening Washington Monument mutely reflected in a sea of names etched in polished black granite.

The politics, people, and culture of US-Vietnam relations are given equal weight in these exhibits. What better way to begin to understand this still unresolved situation than through art?

The Danforth Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Call (508) 620-0050.