We’re pretty taken by this striking homage to the
humble duck. In Vietnam, duck meat and eggs are highly prized and the animals
play a central role in the process of wet-rice farming. The droppings of the
very useful ducks fertilize the water and they eat up the weeds that threaten
to suffocate the young rice plants.
In 1957 Trung Chin, the Minister of Information for the
Northern Democratic Republic of Vietnam, paraphrased the well-known
Leninist dogma, declaring, 'Art is only real art if it becomes propaganda'.
Over the ...
Read More
In 1957 Trung Chin, the Minister of Information for the
Northern Democratic Republic of Vietnam, paraphrased the well-known
Leninist dogma, declaring, 'Art is only real art if it becomes propaganda'.
Over the next three decades, as the country fought against the French, the
Americans and the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, the Vietnamese ‘art force’ played an
essential part in relaying the government’s message to a difficult to reach
population. Amid bombing campaigns and land battles, the artists cycled their
posters to villages across Vietnam. Despite these brutal conditions they
created works of striking originality, pieces that combined 1960s Soviet art
with Vietnam’s own folk art traditions.
Read Less
