It's been a busy week in Saigon for me this week, despite getting no personal work done. This entry is less information/ more interval. I met a friend for lunch today, who may work with Galerie Quynh and our new arts magazine. She asked if I remembered her birthday. I was off by two days. Anyone who has been in this situation can imagine the horror. Which goes back to this blog. This blog is like the digital couple of my moleskine notebook. It's a way of keeping track of shit.

The Nokia show is over and there's been a lot of positive feedback in the city. Although my role was very small in the success of the production (I designed some furniture for the set), I am happy to see that this is one of Uyen's strongest collections yet.

Finding Balance
So, yesterday our group of up and coming publishers met at Atelier Wonderful to discuss the creation of our love child, the magazine. The core group has always been strong in content creation and largely inept when it comes to the business nitty gritty. Luckily for us, someone with extensive business and publishing experience has offered to assist us in the business plan and formation of the magazine. To all those living in the free press world, I must remind you that we're aiming to publish in Vietnam. You can only imagine the challenges.

Sweating it out
After the meeting, I went to the presentation on contemporary photography and the role of the artist by Cheryl Younger, co-hosted by Saigon OpenSpace (formerly Saigon Biennale) and the HCMC Photography Association. The presentation was informative and well worth attending. Now here's my criticism. The Photography Association was definitely a poor venue. Sitting on plastic stools for three hours is one thing, but doing it a room at  90f/30c with no airconditioning and poor ventilation is another. The room was too narrow so folks in the back had a difficult time seeing the presentation. The translation into Vietnamese was problematic. That in itself is always a problem, especially when translating words like 'censorship' and 'gay' when Younger spoke about Robert Mappelthorpe's work, but it was further complicated by having 4 people simultaneously scrambling for just the right words. Translations for WPO and redneck were simply passed over.

Her selection was great including works from Cindy Sherman, Nikki S. Lee to Larry Clark and Man Ray. Younger was extremely strong in her advocation for the artists in creating work independently. Independent from groups or professional associations. Her methodology was explained by the triangle of content, form and reception. I was waiting for the Yasumasa Morimura as Cindy Sherman image, but it never came.

Q&A (Questions and Annoyances)
The most annoying questions that are always asked during Q&A sessions are the technical ones. An artist spends hours detailing their conceptual process and meat of the questions are like, "What kind of paper/film do you use?" I am happy that for once the presenter replied that as professional photographers, they should know how to develop and shoot film already. Once that was out of the way, someone followed, "What content should artists be looking for?" Um, what? So here's the problem. We aren't enabled with creative ability. Everything if formulaic. To be an artist, I need to a, b, and c. Someone, please shoot me!


The Fuji Photography Association
Apart from the presentation itself, all of the works displayed in the gallery of the HCMC Photography Association have these obnoxious (read: nauseous) Fujifilm stickers on them. Can you imagine going to a photography exhibition and having Kodak stickers on all of the prints and Kodak windflags strung along the ceiling like a used car parking lot? Well, that's the HCMC Photography Association gallery. Someone really needs to rethink that space and how it evolved from gallery to showroom to tradeshow exhibition.

Young Folks
The presention was entitled, "The Role of the Artist/Photographer in Society". It was an call to think differently about one's work. From the start, to clear up any ambiguities, Younger listed a number of photographic genres: Documentary, advertising, journalism, 'national geographic', and scientific/medical to explain what she was NOT going to be talking about with regards to what art photography is (though she failed to list pornography as a genre). The audience for the presentation were mostly professional photographers and there were very few new young faces. Her message clearly was about change, and I'm afraid it was lost on the audience. It became clear when one of the elders wanted to know why Larry Clark's photograph of a drug user was considered contemporary art.

Supernaut
One of my daily visits is the Supernaut blog. You can find it on the blogroll to the right under contemporary art. Besides having a mutual interest in drag queens, I go here to get a pulse on what's happening in Asia. The latest post, Guangzhou art and blogs, is a goldmine. Check out the post and the supernaut site.

Marching into March
So, this next month I will finish my second report to the Asian Art Archive, have my first article done for the new magazine, and try and make it into Laos in time to document Jun's new work in Luang Prabang. No new studio (did I write that my dream loft studio space was sold while I was in Cambodia?) and no money. So, that makes it ripe to park my ass in my room and work.