The Peace Murals of Huong
Georgetown, 3336 M Street NW: a huge exhibition of mural panels, spread over two floors. There are hundreds of panels covering the enormous raw, unplastered walls. One author and one theme: Let's Think Peace!
The author is Huong. She was 25 years old when she fled Vietnam, in 1975. She succeeded to arrive to US. Huong had been a journalist in her native country and she was feeling the vital need to express her thoughts. She was not mastering English by that time, so she changed the pen for brush.
Walking along the endless mural panels of Huong, you feel overwhelmed. She has force, she has honesty, she has courage.
And a huge talent. Picasso and Guttuso come to mind, of course, along with the German Expressionists. But there is also something that belongs only to the art of Huong: the way she knows how to convey a duality of meanings. Look at her doves, holding tiny strings: the very fragile moment between life and death.
Says Huong, I see war happening in the world today with a clear vision and perspective. I am not young and scared as I was growing up in Vietnam. I totally understand the dance of wolves. There are 160 million people killed in the wars of the last century. With the technology the human is armed today, what is this number going to be in the next century?
Events of today's world rise terrible questions and there are not easy answers. Each of us is looking for her or his own answers. We can agree or not with Huong's vision. Perhaps that's the most important aspect of this exhibition: it forces us to discuss, to find arguments, to think peace!
The answer of the murals of Huong is more than radical; it is total, every time I look at the horror on the faces of the current war victims, every single face I look at, I see myself.
(Contemporary Art)
The author is Huong. She was 25 years old when she fled Vietnam, in 1975. She succeeded to arrive to US. Huong had been a journalist in her native country and she was feeling the vital need to express her thoughts. She was not mastering English by that time, so she changed the pen for brush.
Walking along the endless mural panels of Huong, you feel overwhelmed. She has force, she has honesty, she has courage.
And a huge talent. Picasso and Guttuso come to mind, of course, along with the German Expressionists. But there is also something that belongs only to the art of Huong: the way she knows how to convey a duality of meanings. Look at her doves, holding tiny strings: the very fragile moment between life and death.
Says Huong, I see war happening in the world today with a clear vision and perspective. I am not young and scared as I was growing up in Vietnam. I totally understand the dance of wolves. There are 160 million people killed in the wars of the last century. With the technology the human is armed today, what is this number going to be in the next century?
Events of today's world rise terrible questions and there are not easy answers. Each of us is looking for her or his own answers. We can agree or not with Huong's vision. Perhaps that's the most important aspect of this exhibition: it forces us to discuss, to find arguments, to think peace!
The answer of the murals of Huong is more than radical; it is total, every time I look at the horror on the faces of the current war victims, every single face I look at, I see myself.
(Contemporary Art)
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
11:30 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home