Present "Muong Pottery" in Hanoi

More than 100 works on display are the results of the artists' exploration and love for ceramics during their creations at Muong Studio, mainly works by artists Vu Duc Hieu (Hieu Muong), Bui Van Dao and painters. Doctor Phan Cam Thuong. If you just listen to it, "Muong Pottery" can make viewers imagine that this is a common ceramic product of the Muong people; In fact, "Muong Pottery" are works of art . Using most of the local raw materials including termite nest soil, "Muong Pottery" is unique because of its uniqueness and unique shapes.

"Overcoming the stereotype of ordinary vases", it can be said that "Muong Pottery" are sculptures on ceramic material. The same earthenware, the same glaze, the same hand-painted, the same baked, but the works lead viewers with their strange imagination. Obviously these are very familiar objects, such as: A jar, a basket, a shoe, a basket... but at the same time, that something is also something with legs: a cow, a pig, a chicken. , duck, elephant... Some works have the shape of seeds, flower buds, or human figures. The duality of being both an object - an animal and a plant - an animal makes the image multifaceted, vivid and attractive.

Standing in front of the work, on the one hand we feel familiar, like we have seen it somewhere, very familiar; On the one hand, we find it very strange and interesting because we have clearly never seen that specific thing anywhere in real life. The work both draws us closer to the simple life without any modern elements, while also allowing us to imagine the wonderful things the artist creates. Close and strange.

Here, viewers not only see the pottery but also see the ceramic soul. Seeing movement in stillness, seeing vitality and grace, solid enough but no less poetic. If people say "Plants occupy time, animals occupy space", then perhaps the works in "Muong Pottery" make us think of both regions even though only through ceramic images - more towards height rather than width.

When looking at ceramics, two factors are often noticed: "First shape, second skin". The main shape is the structure and shape; The skin is enamel-colored and earthy. There are works dipped in enamel, the artist draws patterns on the surface; But there are also works of rustic (ie unleavened) ceramics that go through fire. The colors of white clay and red soil are mixed together, as if the ceramic artist had no intention of molding or manipulating the soil fibers taken from nature; but very coincidentally, accidentally retaining its inherent beauty. As artist Dinh Quan puts it, beautiful works "fall apart", "feeling that over the years, we were born from the soil, from the shore from the dust, from the dike, the garden, or the furrows...".

Watching "Muong Pottery" perhaps it is no longer important to pay attention to the function of each work, that the object must be able to contain a specific material, and what usefulness it has in daily life. The beauty of "Muong Pottery" is that although it is artistic, more suitable for display than for use, it still seamlessly connects the long-standing source of Vietnamese culture, which is rustic, sophisticated, close and still rich. poetry.

On the other hand, the works with unique shapes in "Gom Muong" are also a suggestion about structural change - which is a problem posed by contemporary Vietnamese sculpture. As sculptor Dao Chau Hai puts it: Physical structure in creating visual art is related to shape, that is, form. The simplest and most scientific principle to change this structure is to disassemble the old organizations and structures and reassemble them into new organizations and structures; that is, creating new shapes that are more diverse, multidimensional, and richer.

"Muong Pottery" by identification, has the qualities to create the diversity and richness of Vietnamese ceramics in particular and Vietnamese visual arts in general.