[monumentum]

So it's holiday & fretting about $$ is juz a routine. Not the case of counting down to every cents, but gotta have a certain amount of savings for next sem. Thus there'd definitely need to be a surplus. Bank account more or less died from purchasing of art materials over the last semester.. Just unlinked this from FB, feels so liberating. Deactivated FB too, great. Not sure why I'm finding this crap FB such a turnoff. Anw this is the 2nd last day of documenting for previous road trip. Not many photos, cos no bike. Same day as previous previous post: Day #26: Hue (25-May-2010)
Day of 'Diverse use of Motorbikes' and 'The Cross between Art & Travel'

As usual, the stunning Vietnam scenery. & mountains in the horizon.

Anw Xuan means 'lake' in Vietnamese. So there. You get a signboard testing your mental calculations.. Or perhaps calculators are necessary on the road. No, at least I would've needed it. Lol, can they not give the final figure instead?

Of the diverse use of motorbikes. Perhaps unthinkable for us, but just walking along one road with a camera, & these are some sights I caught of how innovative the Vietnamese are. From doors to combs of bananas, nice. (Below)

And hawker stalls and cut wood.

Of art. - Le Ba Dang Gallery. Not many photos, mainly cos flash photography wasn't permitted in there, & as a result, most photographs weren't usable. But the works were impressive, mostly oil on canvas fine art works.But there were sculptures and installations too.

(Below) Series of sculptures in a public park I came across. Submissions for the International Sculpture Symposium. These were the nicer ones - or so I found attractive. From European to local Vietnamese sculptors, the styles were obviously very diverse, which I thought was the main attraction of this exhibition. Couldn't photograph every single one, time was limited & there were too many of em.

Not Botero, but the obesity factor of this one below is quite distinctive.

So of course, 'style' isn't the only distinguishing point, you get the different media used to execute the works.

Below is really one spooky thing. Perhaps at night? The figure of the lady is a tad larger than life, and it really doesnt help for her to be in that blood-soaked color, which probably had since coagulated into this brownish-maroon shade... And posture like an undead from Myth 3...

I like this one below, cos it screams 'Vietnam'. Loving how the Vietnamese culture is so uniquely 'them', unlike us others who.. Choose to stick with the iPhones and iPods culture. Which, to put it simply, the lack of culture. But the other part of me is debunking this view. It's telling me that I'm being narrow-minded. Yes, it's perhaps the modern culture thing, but really, there's hardly any distinguishing factor about us that'd tell us apart from the rest of the modern world. Guess that's what Matthew Arnold calls 'cultural homogeneity'?

And then you get the ones below, our typical 'concept art' concept. Most art students would've done something along these lines. Heads, faces, and how they morph and mutate. I'm guilty of this mainstream-ness too, but somehow it's juz the subconscious assimilation into what peers do. 'Are you so tired, and so uninspired..?' YES, indeed.

Being the typical art student, I quite like this one by a Thai artist. Where the left of the face diffuses into an array of metal ball bearings. It's named 'Sleeping in Hue'. But I'm not sure what this work means, since what I believe to be the description of the work, is written in Vietnamese. As a whole though it's quite an aesthetically uplifting piece of work, especially the face's expression. Maybe that's why the effigy of the Buddha is spiritually rejuvenating too..

Don't mock my puritan side. I'm genuinely finding the clubbing/dirnking/getting drunk, & perhaps getting laid culture getting on my nerves. It's juz like the Korpiklaani. Constantly partying. I'm not even sure if that's really enjoyable or juz a trend that some ppl feel obliged to follow so to be deemed 'cool'. But of course, outrightly criticizing is another matter and shouldn't be tolerated. Each to their own. I'm not in a position to say. If you can't beat them, join them, or leave them. I chose the latter & am happy with this choice.