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Socialist realist painting has almost become history. As for
Contemporary art, the aesthetically worthwhile works
are mostly a perfect fabrication if not for a sheer minimum
works confronting the real issues of the society.
In historical hindsight, from the first decades of the twentieth century, while modern fine arts was still obsessed by
romanticism, with the rustic bamboo-lined villages and graceful maiden chambers; literature has already achieved
fresh successes with critical realist worksBut in due time, the red carpet was taken over by the ideology of socialist
realism, which was then considered the one and only path to the monument of arts. Only after the Renovation,
new artworks emerged with traits of a critical realist style, yet still dominated by the exaggerated language of the
trendy Pop art, or by Surrealist distant metaphorism, or even by an over-inflation, more or less, of macro political
engagement, which by nature, is not the intuitive forte of the majority of Vietnamese artists. Sincere artists are rare,
even more scarce are those who chose to follow the path of critical realism by his default will power.
The young artist, Nguyen Trong Minh decided to ensue a forgotten path of critical realism, which had once been so
effective in confronting with a tumultous society with the hodgepodge old and new values. As a spiral of destiny, the
contemporary society exposes a multitude of problems for critique. The only remaining questions are which themes
and forms would ensure the supremacy of artistic creativity.
The critical realist artworks
of Nguyen Trong Minh
Vu Huy Thong
2014