Trần Trung Tína solo exhibition by Trần Trung Tín Birdsong - December 17, 2023 October 20, 2023 Trần Trung Tín Manzi and Blue Space Gallery are pleased to present an extraordinary exhibition by Trần Trung Tín entitled ‘Birdsong’ on the occasion of the late artist’s 90th birthday anniversary Opening: 06.00 PM Friday 20 October 2023 On display: 11.00 AM - 07.00 PM (Tue - Sun) from 21 Oct until 17 Dec 2023 Venue: Manzi Exhibition Space, 2 ngõ Hàng Bún, Ba Đình, Hanoi Free Entrance Trần Trung Tín (1933 - 2008), a talented man with an exceptional life born into a bizarre epoch, had started painting merely as a way to go through the aftermath of an ideological crisis. Stuck in the extreme disillusionment and suppression, forbidden to speak up his thoughts or write out his opinions, Trần Trung Tín began to draw. In such a strange twist of fate, the used-to-be actor/announcer/film screenwriter then spent the entire last half of his life painting ceaselessly and quietly, and unexpectedly became the most absurd and brilliant phenomenon of Vietnamese art. He painted to release himself from all the suppression, to seek salvation, to break the silence, to not get lost or give up, to hold onto his self, with all its essence and ethos … he painted in a struggle “to overcome the atrocious era we were all living in” ( said by director Tự Huy - a friend of Trần Trung Tín) Perhaps from chaos of all confusion and disappointment, a new strength would blossom; amid the destruction and collapse new construction would arise, as always, though isolated and muted yet absolutely pure and true. The exhibition ‘Birdsong’ at manzi will display over 30 artworks painted on newspaper and photographic paper including both figurative and abstract series. This is the second solo show by Trần Trung Tin in Hanoi (the first one ‘Optimistic Tragedy’ was held ten years ago), naturally it has a sense of home-coming, for most of the displayed works were painted in Hanoi during the years of 1969 - 1973. The period is the peak time of the bombing and airstrike in North Vietnam during the war, and Trần Trung Tín, despite the order to evacuate from the dangerous area, persisted to stay inside the city; then under the bombshelter he painted these works. Coming back here after half of decade, they just like an alternative way the late artist kept his promise to ‘𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝐻𝑎𝑛𝑜𝑖 - 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒’ (excerpt from Trần Trung Tín’s telegram to Vietnam Feature Film Studio, after moving back to Saigon in 1975) ARTWORKS GALLERY _____________ ‘Birdsong’ also marks the first time his experimental series of abstraction has been introduced publicly. Unlike the figurative series with the idiomatic symbolism that made the artist well-known internationally: the metaphoric images of the girl, rifle, flower, bird,... unveiling an oppressed reality and post-war traumas in bleak gloomy palettes ; his abstract series in the 70s is likely to be in warmer shade and a more lighthearted spirit. In the tragic darkness of war (literally and metaphorically), Tín kept painting under the dim light of the oil lamp inside his small basement, while the air-raid siren was wailing. Through the energy of colors and freedom of lines, Tin's paintings with an idiosyncratic visual language (unprecedented in his generation, which had always been prevailed by French classical style and Soviet realistic & propaganda art ), silently yet powerfully shine with strange optimism and innocence, as if ‘meditative retreats’ to ‘a self-created visual sanctuary from the war raging outside.’ In addition to the abstract body of works, this exhibition also features some figurative paintings he drew in the years of 1972-1975. Here, with 'The little girl of Hanoi', 'My Cat', 'Orange Venus', 'Hanoi Communal House'... shades and strokes are applied in a completely primitive and pristine style (artist Bùi Xuân Phái appraised Trần Trung Tín as a natural - born master of colors ). The sadness and solitude thus, effortlessly oozed out in a gentle yet haunting & powerful way. Trần Trung Tín, with all of the choices of his life, and his art courageously embraced and preserved what people of his time had been forced to abandon to survive and adapt to the chaotic era. That strange audacious bird, an outsider of his land, an outcast of his time, amazingly is still singing by now, as " Truth cannot be executed / Beauty cannnot be buried…” (*), giving voice to the muted and recalling memories of what once denied, erased by the war and historical turbulence. ____ (*) From a poem Trần Trung Tín wrote in 1964 ============== TRẦN TRUNG TÍN (b.1933, from Ben Tre), joined the Resistance against the French at the age of 12. In 1954, he gathered in Hanoi and was directly recruited into the first course of the Vietnam Film School, then worked as an actor, a screenwriter for some propaganda films ; he was also an announcer for the Voice of Vietnam radio. In 1969 he started drawing. In 1975, he moved to Ho Chi Minh city and lived there until he died in 2008. Trần Trung Tín had his first solo exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum in 2001. He was also the first Vietnamese artist invited to exhibit at the British Museum in London in 2002, then 2007. His works also participated in many international exhibitions in the US, France, England, Thailand, Singapore, Japan... and are included in many large art collections. In 2013, 5 years after his death, his wife - Mrs. Tran Thi Huynh Nga organized a solo exhibition for him at the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum. = = = = = = BLUE SPACE GALLERY was founded in 1996 by Mrs. Trần Thị Huỳnh Nga, first operated in collaboration with the Ho Chi Minh Museum of Fine Arts. Since 1997, with funding from the Ford Foundation, ‘Blue Space’ has continually propelled experimentation in the arts through monthly exhibitions for young artists from a variety of backgrounds, from the North to South and also from outside the country. Many of them today are honored in the art scene: Jun Nguyen Hatsushiba, Nguyễn Minh Thành, Nguyễn Văn Cường, Lê Thừa Tiến, Mai Anh Dũng, Bùi Công Khánh, Ly Hoàng Ly, Nguyễn Thị Châu Giang, Nguyễn Sơn, Nguyễn Thái Tuấn, Bùi Hải Sơn, to name a few. ‘Blue Space’ also promotes international exchanges through conferences, workshops, and art camps focusing on performing art and installation. Since 2007, ‘Blue Space’ has been halting the experimental side of their activities due to Huỳnh Nga’s health. OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)

Lê Đình Chungan open studio by Lê Đ.Chunh following the stone wall and we found an electric generator - July 13, 2025 June 13, 2025 Lê Đình Chung Opening party: 06.30 PM Friday 13 June, 2025 On display: 11.00 AM - 07.00 PM Tue - Sun | from 14 June until 13 July 2025 Manzi Exhibition Space, 2 ngõ Hàng Bún, Ba Đình Free entrance >>> CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL CATALOGUE *** This special summer show at Manzi acts as a prelude to Lê Đ.Chunh’s ongoing multimedia art project, which began in 2017. The project is a long-term research into a resettled migrant community in what was known as a New Economic Zone during the Đổi Mới era (from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s), specifically in Di Linh, Lâm Đồng. The occupants were part of a state-enforced resettlement program, a large-scale postwar operation that relocated people from lowland and urban areas to the highland & mountainous areas, and border regions. This program was an effort of the Vietnamese government to redistribute the population and reconstruct the nation’s economy after decades of strife. Over there, life was forcibly re-established atop the lingering ruins of the colonial period: abandoned plantations were converted into state-run farms; houses were erected on the remains of derelict tea factories; and running alongside a stone wall—the leftover irrigation structures on small streams were reused to power rudimentary generators. These acts of appropriation, though obvious and necessary for survival, carried with them the quiet irony and absurdity of a coerced negotiation with history, where survival meant adapting to—rather than overcoming—the alien remnants of another era, a reluctant inheritance that shaped life without ever truly belonging to it. The series of paintings on dzo paper by Lê Đ.Chunh presented in this open studio reflect personal recollections and plain observations about the life in this land—a kind of documentation that layers the artist’s internal compression of memory, physical traces, and communal experiences. In seemingly loose and wild compositions, the impulsive placements of fragmented details appear inconsequential and random at first. However, such constant recurrence begins to disturb our vision, gradually prompting contemplation: A fire burning before a church, A horse bearing a pair of breasts, A couple struck by lightning, Dogs with uncanny expressions and ambiguous gestures, suggesting a mysterious twist or unexpected accident, A crowd gathering, jubilant as they await the rare broadcast of an entertainment program, Faceless figures masked by drooping hoods, heads huddled in gossip or fighting mid-drunken stumble, Someone on crutches… Someone holding a “flambeau/flaring sword”? ARTWORKS GALLERY There is no main character. Everyone appears to be a passing extra, drifting in and out of a scene with a disorienting and unstable perspective: a shadow curled into a black hole, a tilting plank, an overturned table, a crooked ladder, or a car flipped upside down. Everything accumulates like raw data awaiting a long-form fictional narrative—or possibly a draft storyboard for a serial drama that cycles through a maze of intertwined events and plot turns. Surprisingly, it is precisely through these scattered and chaotic bits that we see glimpses of a whole generation's silent struggles, exposing shards of a collective memory about what was once an "unwilling promised land." Though it was a destination no one opted for and few could avoid, as if exiled and deprived of memories of a lost home, there is yet hope for a new homeland. A quirk of fate underlines the prospect of a whole new belonging?! Alongside a series of dzo paper drawings, this open studio also presents “99% Tetris Game | the cold war is over… almost,” an interactive video game work by Lê Đ.Chunh. Tetris (Тетрис) , the iconic puzzle game where tetromino blocks (composed of 4 squares) fall from the “sky,” was created in 1984 by Soviet engineer Alexey Pajitnov. It became the very first video game exported from the Soviet Union—unexpectedly becoming a global phenomenon, especially after reaching American players through Nintendo’s Game Boy. Lê Đ.Chunh, too, grew up with memories of handheld gaming consoles and sibling rivalries over playtime. Borrowing the 1988 U.S. marketing slogan for Tetris—“The Cold War is over... almost”—the artist has created his own absurdist version of the game. In place of clean geometric blocks, he uses fragments from daily life: hoes, sickles, sandbags, cattle, plants, pots, rubber sandals, silhouettes of residents… all cut from photographs he captured around the stone walls of the old tea factory. Like in Tetris, the pieces fall into a fixed screen; the player can rotate or move them sideways, but because there’s no unifying geometry, they never quite align. There is no neat fit, no completed lines, and no score. The fragments simply pile up—off-kilter and unresolved—in a system of illogical self-cancellation. The work gently links personal memory with broader historical shifts—from a transforming local landscape to the distant echoes of a crumbling world order—not to interrogate or conclude, but to propose a wry scenario: when pieces never fit, how long can the game go on—and for what reason? ____________________ Stubborn and still—the stone wall never yielded, never crumbled, nor could it be torn down, despite the ravages of war and the churn of time. Once, it was merely a forgotten colonial remnant, too obscure for anyone to name or trace. And yet, from its silence, a roof was raised, a well was dug, and a childhood was tenderly nurtured. “Following the stone wall,” thus, to Lê Đ.Chunh, is no longer just a gesture of personal remembrance but perhaps a long journey through overlapping strata of memory, tracing around the ruptures of history—an undiscovered zone that opens up to endless possibilities and re-imagination. OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s) Lê Đình Chung

silk Lâm Tú Trân biography Born in 1997, graduated from HCMC University of Fine Arts, Tran is one of Vietnam's most talented emerging artist, specializing in silk. Tran creates her own surrealistic universe in her paintings, using a skilled technique and precise control of lines and colors, with characters and scenery drifting as in dreams. They are remarkably gentle and brave, innocent and nostalgic, lyrical and gloomy, with a poetically hazy suggestion of darkness in the tumultuous psyche of the youth who is continually confronted with the loneliness and uncertainty of modern existence. She firmly believes that an artist is the one who enrich inner beauty. The aesthetic can be explored in little things around our mundane lives, though small and almost invisible, yet always be present and attached with our own feelings. Tran has participated in numerous group art events and exhibitions both locally and internationally. works This artist currently has no available work at Manzi works See LÂM TÚ TRÂN 2023 90 x 68 cm watercolor on silk Enquire works Childhood LÂM TÚ TRÂN 2023 60 x 60 cm watercolor on silk Enquire related Catching Faces Faint Traces the sky, the sand, the lashing waves following the stone wall and we found an electric generator 6𝒗➡️¹/² The world as a draft The Fifth Cardinal Direction Spatium 47 Days, Sound-less in spaces of everyscape, at time without end </3 Hồi Sóng Birdsong on our pathway vol. 4 Entrusted Conjectures Hanoi 1985 - 2015, In The Years Of Forgetting Then and Now, Hanoi streets in transition 'Neo-Romanticism' More than Human #1 Arca Noa no-think The Four Subjects A saga of unrealised projects The dreamer: heterotopia, tabula rasa, noble silence (a part of ongoing project 0395A.ĐC) Through the looking glass what's going on at Manzi Tình See more October 5, 2025 Tình See more October 4, 2025 Bắt mặt | Catching Faces See more October 4, 2025 Tình See more October 3, 2025 Artist Talk vs Nguyễn Thị Thanh Mai See more September 27, 2025 Art Tour | Những Vệt Mờ / Faint Traces See more September 10, 2025 Những Vệt Mờ | Faint Traces See more September 6, 2025 Between the Strings See more August 5, 2025 sóng vỗ cát trời | the sky, the sand, the lashing waves See more August 1, 2025 Nguyên (âm) đơn See more July 20, 2025

mixed media Nguyễn Trinh Thi biography Nguyễn Trinh Thi is a Hanoi-based moving image artist. Her diverse practice, transcending the boundaries between cinema, documentary and performance, has consistently engaged with memory and history. Thi uses montage to compose her work, drawing on different media, from her own audio and visual recordings to found footage and still images from postcards, photography, newsreels, Hollywood films and ethnographic footage. Her practice currently explores the power of sound and listening, and the multiple relations between image, sound and space, with ongoing interests in memory, representation, landscape, indigeneity and ecology. Her works have been shown at Thailand Biennale, Chiang Rai (2023), documenta fifteen, Kassel (2022), Minneapolis Institute of Art (2019), Biennale Jogja XV, Yogyakarta (2019), the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane (2018), 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018), International Film Festival Rotterdam (2016), Jeu de Paume, Paris (2015), CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (2015), 13th Lyon Contemporary Art Biennale (2015) and Asian Art Biennial, Taichung (2015), among others. Thi is the director of Hanoi DOCLAB, an independent centre for documentary film and moving image art she founded in 2009. works This artist currently has no available work at Manzi works Enquire related Catching Faces Faint Traces the sky, the sand, the lashing waves following the stone wall and we found an electric generator 6𝒗➡️¹/² The world as a draft The Fifth Cardinal Direction Spatium 47 Days, Sound-less in spaces of everyscape, at time without end </3 Hồi Sóng Birdsong on our pathway vol. 4 Entrusted Conjectures Hanoi 1985 - 2015, In The Years Of Forgetting Then and Now, Hanoi streets in transition 'Neo-Romanticism' More than Human #1 Arca Noa no-think The Four Subjects A saga of unrealised projects The dreamer: heterotopia, tabula rasa, noble silence (a part of ongoing project 0395A.ĐC) Through the looking glass what's going on at Manzi Tình See more October 5, 2025 Tình See more October 4, 2025 Bắt mặt | Catching Faces See more October 4, 2025 Tình See more October 3, 2025 Artist Talk vs Nguyễn Thị Thanh Mai See more September 27, 2025 Art Tour | Những Vệt Mờ / Faint Traces See more September 10, 2025 Những Vệt Mờ | Faint Traces See more September 6, 2025 Between the Strings See more August 5, 2025 sóng vỗ cát trời | the sky, the sand, the lashing waves See more August 1, 2025 Nguyên (âm) đơn See more July 20, 2025

contemporary artists of Vietnam acclaimed and emerging các nghệ sĩ đương đại Việt Nam ARTISTS See more AP Nguyễn (b.1999 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Bảo Vương (b. 1978 - France) See more Doãn Hoàng Lâm (b. 1970 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Đoàn Văn Tới (b.1989 - Hai Phong, Vietnam) See more Đinh Thị Thắm Poong (b. 1970 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Hà Mạnh Thắng (b.1980 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Hồ Hưng (b. 1981 - Hue, Vietnam) See more Lâm Tú Trân (b.1997 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Lê Đức Anh (b.1998 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Lê Phi Long (b. 1989 - Hue, Vietnam) See more Lê Thị Anh Yến (b.1999 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Lương Văn Việt (b. 1977 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nadege David (b.1975 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Ngô Văn Sắc (b. 1980 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Đình Việt (b.1989 - Hue, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Đức Đạt (b. 1979 - Pleiku, Gia Lai, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Kim Tố Lan (b.1982 - Dalat, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Minh Thành (b. 1971 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Ngọc Linh (b.1988 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Quang Huy (b. 1971 - Ha Tay, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Thị Hoàng Minh (b. 1984 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Thị Xuân Mai (b.1998 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Trần Nam (b. 1979 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Văn Cường (b. 1972) See more Phạm Khắc Quang (b. 1975 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Quách Huy Bắc (b. 1988 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Sandrine Llouquet (b. 1975 - France) See more Thái Nhật Minh (b. 1984 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Trần Trọng Vũ (b. 1964 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Trương Công Tùng (b. 1986 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Võ Trân Châu (b.1986 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Vương Thạo (b. 1969 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more An Nguyễn (b.1987 - Hue, Vietnam) See more Bùi Quang Khiêm (b.1970, Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Đào Anh Khánh (b.1959 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Đoàn Xuân Tặng (b.1977 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Đỗ Hiệp (b.1984 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Hà Ninh Pham (b.1991 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Jamie Maxtone - Graham (from Connecticut, USA) See more Lê Công Thành (1932 - 2019) See more Lê Hoàng Bích Phượng (b. 1984 - USA) See more Lê Quý Tông (b. 1977 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Lê Thúy (b. 1988 - Hoi An, Vietnam) See more Ly Hoàng Ly (b.1975 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Ngô Đình Bảo Châu (b.1986 - Dong Thap, Vienam) See more Nguyễn Cẩm Nhung (b.1998 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Đức Hạnh (b. 1981 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Huy An (b. 1982 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng (b. 1976 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Nghĩa Cương (b. 1973 - Bac Ninh, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Phi Phi Oanh (b. 1979 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Thế Sơn (b. 1978 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Thị Thanh Mai (b.1983, Hue, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Trang Ngà (b.1975 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Tuấn Cường (b. 1978 - Ha Dong, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Văn Phúc (b.1978 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Phạm Thái Bình (b. 1978 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Phan Thảo Nguyên (b. 1987 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Sto Len USA See more Till Ansgar Baumhamer (b.1972 - Germany) See more Trần Tuấn (b.1981 - Hue, Vietnam) See more Trương Tiến Trà (b. 1979 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Võ Trọng Hồng (b.1990 - Nghe An, Vietnam) See more Bàng Nhất Linh (b.1983 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Bùi Tiến Tuấn (b.1971 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Đào Tùng (b.1982 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Đặng Hiền (b.1982 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Đỗ Tuấn Anh (b.1979 - Germany) See more Hà Đào (b.1995 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Lãng Đỗ (b. 1986 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Lê Đình Chung (b.1990 - Dak Nong, Vietnam) See more Lê Kim Mỹ (b. 1946 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Lê Thanh Tùng (b. 1989 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Lê Xuân Tiến (b.1995 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Maritta Nurmi (b.1953 - Finland) See more Nghĩa Đặng (b.1994 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Đình Hoàng Việt (b. 1988 - Hue, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Đức Phương (b. 1982 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Kim Duy (b.1987 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Minh Quân (b. 1989 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Ngọc Liêm (b.1989 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Phương Linh (b. 1985 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Thị Hồng Khanh (b.1996 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Thị Thanh Tuyền (b. 1992 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Trần Cường (b.1979 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Trinh Thi (b.1973 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Nguyễn Văn Duy (b.1989 - Hue, Vietnam) See more Phan Minh Bạch (b.1979 - Thanh Hoa, Vietnam) See more Romain Orfeuvre France See more Tào Linh (b. 1960 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Trần Nguyễn Trung Tín (b. 1992 - HCMC, Vietnam) See more Trịnh Nhật Vũ (b. 1990 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Trương Quế Chi (b.1987 - Hanoi, Vietnam) See more Vũ Kim Thư (b. 1976 - Hanoi, Vietnam)

Nguyễn Đình Hoàng ViệtA solo exhibition by NGUYỄN ĐÌNH HOÀNG VIỆT 05.11 - 06.12.2016 ?! - December 6, 2016 November 5, 2016 Nguyễn Đình Hoàng Việt ?! – a solo exhibition showcasing two new series of paintings by Huế based artist Nguyễn Đình Hoàng Việt. Having quietly made a name for himself in the past few years, Việt is best known for his trompe l’oeil portraits of rodents and fish looking peacefully content, trancelike, as if captured by a wonderful dream. Although playfully depicted, the works seriously have us question our eyes, as on closer inspection all the creatures turn out to be dead, for mice don’t lie face up when they sleep, and fish cannot breath without their gills. The latest work in the continuation of the animal series - presented as the first half of ?! - features flawlessly painted renditions of dead chickens, ducks and crabs. This time, however, they are flanked by comical exclamation marks and empty, black speech bubbles. The animals seem to be communicating something with us, but are ultimately failing to get their message across. How can they, really? For they are dead and we are not animals (or are we?!) The second half of ?! showcases Việt’s venture into a new area of interest - everyday objects - for which he has been producing 2D replicas of things we see and overlook daily with his trademark photorealist precision. Broken glass, a bent nail, pieces of paper and a wall crack are now the center of the stage. However, the obvious and mundane here is made obscure and abstract - not in terms of style but content. Objects perceived to serve a specific function are rendered useless: a painted nail cannot hold a piece of art, a painted crack cannot be fixed, a painted broken piece of glass cannot be swept up. Việt’s work – with its elements of light, school-boy humour – gives new input to the ever-evolving, decades-old conversation surrounding realism in art. Its ability to cause intrigue, elicit a giggle and give pause for contemplation is a reminder that the contested discussion of whether or not realist painting is relevant, or could be used as a medium for contemporary art, is not over. Yet. Likewise, painting is not dead. Yet. And may never be. Maybe… ?! *This exhibition is part of Manzi’s art programme supported by CDEF of the Danish Embassy ARTWORKS GALLERY OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s) Nguyễn Đình Hoàng Việt

Nguyễn Mạnh HùngA solo exhibition by NGUYỄN MẠNH HÙNG 06.07 - 06.08.2018 The Age After Divinity - August 6, 2018 July 6, 2018 Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng ‘The Age After Divinity' displays a series of new works by Hanoi-born surrealist, Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng, whose playful, irony-laden work has been turning heads in the contemporary art scene of Vietnam. Depicting activities and events of daily life in an absurd world, this series of oil and water colour paintings presents immersive environments with droll juxtapositions that cleverly allude to cultural realities, social conflicts, the complexities of civic development and individual responsibility in Vietnam today. Focusing on the visual relationships of disjointed elements and unusual scales, with 'The Age After Divinity', Hung has conveyed his wry sense of humour and boldly brought audiences to a world in which everything is made bare through his biting irony. *This event is part of Manzi’s art programme supported by the Danish Embassy ARTWORKS GALLERY ARTIST STATEMENT --- "Once upon a time, back in the ancient days, divine beings used to dwell in the human realm, living amongst mortals under the guise of various living creatures. Despite this, man hardly came across a deity often, and even in the case of an actual encounter, it was not at all obvious and man remained unaware. In that ancient time, one land had undergone severe toils of war. Luckily, the Emperor of that land, with the help of many divinities, finally won over the invaders and revived the kingdom. In gratitude of the divine graces who had assisted him, the Emperor decreed that the divinities would be worshipped with the title ‘Hộ Quốc Thánh’ (‘Sacred Guardian of the Empire’ or ‘Empire’s Patron Saint’) and a permanent privilege of worship and adoration would be extendedto all generations of the divinities’ offspring. Everyone in the kingdom rejoiced and swore to comply. Many years passed, the divinities, one after another, deserted the human realm, left behind their positions and were succeeded by their descendants. Although these descendants of divinities were unfortunately not divinities. Closely as they resembled their sacred ancestors in outer appearance, in the inner essence, they did not in fact possess any extraordinary power. However the decree had been passed, the subjects complied and the edict of the First Emperor continued to be honoured, the people of this kingdom continued worshipping and serving all descendants of the divinities as solemnly and respectfully as before. Like ordinary people, not divine beings, with banal mindset like any other mere mortals on earth, the descendants of divinities also surrendered to all kinds of passions, lusts and were subject to all earthly vices and sufferings. This series of drawings presents activities and events of daily life indicating how people of that land may have interacted and dealt with descendants of the divinities. Nguyen Manh Hung – June 2018 OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s) Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng

Nguyễn Thị Huệ Hà Đào Hạnh Trần Lê Xuân Tiến Nguyễn Đức Huy Mai Phạm Thịnh Nguyễn Jamie Maxtone-GrahamA group photography exhibition 07.12.2018 - 07.01.2019 Second Opinion - January 7, 2019 December 7, 2018 Nguyễn Thị Huệ Hà Đào Hạnh Trần Lê Xuân Tiến Nguyễn Đức Huy Mai Phạm Thịnh Nguyễn Jamie Maxtone-Graham 'The several different series of photographs presented in this exhibition were developed out of a long-term workshop experience at Hanoi DocLab and produced in 2017. Each of the photographers located a public or private landscape that held meaning for them and for a number of months explored that photographically. The projects were developed out of group critique sessions with participants sharing their works-in-progress with the others also producing their own series. It was a highly supportive, nurturing and ultimately collaborative effort. So the opportunity to exhibit the results of that process presented a moment to continue the collaboration - the curators of this exhibition came through the workshop and have seen all the portfolios developed from the beginning, they know the difficulty and the processes intimately and have brought them to this realization on the wall before you. This is the second group exhibition of DocLab’s photography work. The first, in 2013, was called Autopsy Of Days – a title suggesting a kind of clinical examination, a post-mortem by the photographers in examining their own lives, their own time within their own city of Hanoi. In medicine, when patients receive a difficult diagnosis from a doctor and are uncertain about how to proceed with treatment, often they will get a second opinion from another medical professional in order to confirm, dispute or amend the original finding. So here, by a different group, is a second look' - Jamie Maxtone-Graham ARTWORKS GALLERY About the artworks 1 . Story of Blue and Red by Nguyễn Thị Huệ Everybody could be described by one or a group of color. It could be their aura or physical appearance. It could be the melancholic, cold deep blue or the burning red of fire. It could be a beautiful confluence or vast emptiness that cannot be be connected. Through the memories of her parents in her childhood and her feelings about their relationship, the artist wants to portray their relationship as to look back and to discover more about them through the photography process that has interaction with her parents 2. The Mirror by Hà Đào In this interior setting, two bodies experience pain, pleasure and sensations in between. The camera is turned at both the girl and her lover, sometimes peering at what’s living inside a house with a half open window, an enclosed fish tank and a sealed plastic bag. This is a slightly truthful, slightly fantastical diary that is open to the public. These are captured moments of craving, clinging, confronting and pushing away, which rely on the camera sensor as a safe box, whose meanings slip once the person is not present. 3. Another World by Hạnh Trần "One day, I was wondering in a vast burning grass field. I saw the wood wastes dried out to make matches. I was silently watching them: the shape of the wood resembles human eyes, the grass burning out from its root still felt warm. I photographed them as an observer. I went on to capture little details of the natural world surrounding me. This allows me to see and feel them close to my body. The shape and lines of a leaf could be the neutrons in my brain or the veins in my heart… With materials from nature that are considered garbage, I hope to reveal and visualize our human connection with another world that exists right here and now, but might fall into oblivion." 4. Mom-me của Việt Vũ Mom-me is my first personal image project about my mom made in late 2016. I used the camera as a means to experience the traces time has left on my mom's body. This collection is also an exploration inside my mind about what the relationship between a mom and a son looks like. While making the nude photos that shows apparent old-age traces on my mom, I had clear intention of using natural on-spot lighting. In that way, I could reach the simplicity and the natural quality of the images. That helped me come closest to the character – my mom. Also, in that way, I could expose the somewhat under-dogged character in the most direct way. Other photos reveal my mom in a gentler and somewhat poetic way as if in a sweet dream. 5. Looking for the 4th side by Lê Xuân Tiến The series is a process of confronting scenes on which the author imposed his memories, dissecting the memories from the scenes so they can both be looked at again in a different form. A piece of memory only exists in the the mind, and the scenes do not carry the author's personal imprint. Could this attempt succeed? 6. '112' by Nguyễn Đức Huy With this work, the artist repeats the process of recording the subject day by day with the same camera angle and composition, following the dying process of the tangerines. In this whole process, the artist asks himself: At which moment are they actually dead? 7. What I shoot when I go around the city by Mai Phạm This project starts when I take my camera around the city where I’m living, recording all imagery that caught my attention, freely and naturally. Slowly, the images that I want to remember from those wandering times started to be more focused. They reflects my feeling about the city. To me, Hanoi is a living creature, that inside which each scenery and resident has connect and exist in different ways. OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s) Hà Đào Lê Xuân Tiến Jamie Maxtone - Graham

oil/acrylic Nguyễn Trần Nam biography Born in 1979, Nam is considered one of the second-wave contemporary artists in Hanoi closely associated with Nha San Studio – one of the first artist-led experimental art spaces of Northern Vietnam. Since graduating from the Vietnam University of Fine Art in 2003, Nam has been producing a diverse body of multimedia work, which takes inspiration from his own experience coming from a working-class family, growing up in the countryside of Hung Yen and later migrating to the capital to study painting. At times dark and heavy, at others playful and sarcastic, his work makes visible both the past and present-day social, political and historical issues of Vietnam, while highlighting the individual tales of human relationships among people of different social groups. Nam’s selected exhibitions include: ‘UNDONE…’ – Manzi Art Space, Hanoi – 2017; ‘Mise-en-scene’ - Nha San Collective, Hanoi - 2016, ‘Broken Chapters’- Manzi Art Space, Hanoi, 2013, ‘Hinterland’ - Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco - 2012, ‘Gap’ -Nha San Studio, Hanoi - 2010. works This artist currently has no available work at Manzi works It's your time, it's your turn NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2023 30 x 20 cm oil on canvas Enquire works Such a quiet zone of quotidian reality NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2023 30 x 20 cm oil on canvas Enquire works The Magician NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2017 80 x 60 cm lacquer Enquire works The Ugliest Man of the world NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2017 100 x 50 cm lacquer Enquire works Trapped on the stage 2 NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2019 40 x 30 cm oil on canvas Enquire works Trapped on the stage 4 NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2019 40 x 30 cm oil on canvas Enquire works Tale of the island no. 2 NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2018 50 x 35 cm oil on canvas Enquire works The priggish yellow light NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2016 30 x 25 cm zincograph print Enquire works The Performance no.3 NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2022 20 x 20 cm lacquer Enquire works 'He' is just an ordinary man now and then NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2020 50 x 35 cm oil on canvas Enquire works The Conscientious in spirit NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2017 60 x 45 cm lacquer Enquire works Trapped on the stage 1 NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2019 30 x 20 cm oil on canvas Enquire works Trapped on the stage 3 NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2019 40 x 30 cm oil on canvas Enquire works Trivial memories no. 1 NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2017 42 x 30 cm watercolor on paper Enquire works Dreamy Slumber 3 NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 2017 60 x 40 cm oil on canvas Enquire related Catching Faces Faint Traces the sky, the sand, the lashing waves following the stone wall and we found an electric generator 6𝒗➡️¹/² The world as a draft The Fifth Cardinal Direction Spatium 47 Days, Sound-less in spaces of everyscape, at time without end </3 Hồi Sóng Birdsong on our pathway vol. 4 Entrusted Conjectures Hanoi 1985 - 2015, In The Years Of Forgetting Then and Now, Hanoi streets in transition 'Neo-Romanticism' More than Human #1 Arca Noa no-think The Four Subjects A saga of unrealised projects The dreamer: heterotopia, tabula rasa, noble silence (a part of ongoing project 0395A.ĐC) Through the looking glass what's going on at Manzi Tình See more October 5, 2025 Tình See more October 4, 2025 Bắt mặt | Catching Faces See more October 4, 2025 Tình See more October 3, 2025 Artist Talk vs Nguyễn Thị Thanh Mai See more September 27, 2025 Art Tour | Những Vệt Mờ / Faint Traces See more September 10, 2025 Những Vệt Mờ | Faint Traces See more September 6, 2025 Between the Strings See more August 5, 2025 sóng vỗ cát trời | the sky, the sand, the lashing waves See more August 1, 2025 Nguyên (âm) đơn See more July 20, 2025

Thomas BillhardtA photography exhibition by THOMAS BILLHARDT 03.10 - 15.11.2020 Hà Nội 1967 - 1975 - November 15, 2020 October 3, 2020 Thomas Billhardt The Goethe Institut, Camera Work, Nhã Nam Publisher and Manzi Art Space are pleased to present an extraordinary photo exhibition featuring Hanoi in the period of 1967 to 1975 by world-renowned German photographer Thomas Billhardt. Consisting of 130 black & white and colour photos taken during Thomas Billhardt's trips to Vietnam, the exhibition presents viewers an honest documentary of Hanoi from 1967 to 1975, minute by quotidian minute, sincere and unadorned. ‘Hanoi 1967- 1975’ through the lens of Thomas is the joyful moment of welcoming a child born in the wartime, the captured American pilots in the camps, the crowds bicycling in the rains, the outdoor drawing classes with barefooted pupils, the innocent happy faces of children, the iconic stadium with football crowds lost in passionate cheers… All these visual notes make a symphony about life steeped in hardship but brimming with care and love. ‘Thomas’s photos held up a mirror to the world while at the same time strengthening hope. They tell of the world’s social inequalities, of poverty, of suffering, of war, but also of the life and laughter of the people who live in it’ – says Wilfried Eckstein, Director of the Goethe Institut. ‘Hanoi 1967- 1975’ by Thomas carves out its own realm of memory where Hanoi appears in all its various expressions of this time. The exhibition open from 3rd Oct. to 15 Nov. 2020 at both spaces of Manzi: 02 Ngõ Hàng Bún and 14 Phan Huy Ích, Ba Đình, Hanoi. A photo book 'Hà Nội 1967-1975' published by the Goethe Institut and Nha Nam Publishing House will be launched during the exhibition with a series of talks and film screenings. ARTWORKS GALLERY INTRO Thomas Billhardt was one of the GDR’s most extraordinary photographers . In the late 1960s, his shots of the Vietnam War earned him worldwide fame. He was the first to capture the horrors of this war on camera, especially in his photographs of children’s faces. His photographic art was created and spread in a time before digital overload. His photos were unforgettable, images that would linger before the viewer’s inner eye. They held up a mirror to the world while at the same time holding out hope. They tell of the world’s social inequalities, of poverty, of suffering, of war, but also of the life and laughter of the people who live in it. In his photography, Thomas Billhardt expressed suffering through the iconography of big, expressive children’s eyes. His style stirred empathy and solidarity across national borders. As a news photographer, he travelled on behalf of GDR government authorities, agencies, publishing houses, and UNICEF. He documented the hot spots of world events such as Vietnam, travelling to Bangladesh, China, Chile, Guinea, Indonesia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Mozambique, the Middle East, Nicaragua, and the Philippines. His first long-distance trip took him to revolutionary Cuba in 1961. “That trip,” he says, “was a turning point in my life. I was not indifferent to the experience and fascination of the revolutionary movement. I got to know two sides of society.” The countries he visited most often were the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Italy. Between 1962 and 1985, he visited the Soviet Union over fifty times and Italy more than twenty times. He was fascinated by social contradictions expressed in the faces of the people he saw: “I experienced human joy and suffering, whether it was on the natural gas fields of the former USSR or on the front lines in Vietnam .” (Thomas Billhardt) BIO Thomas Billhardt, born in 1937 , grew up in Chemnitz, which was called Karl-Marx-Stadt during the GDR era. One of the enduring impressions of his childhood was the smell of developer and fixing bath chemicals in his parents’ home. His mother Maria Schmid-Billhardt was a freelance photographer who had her own studio. At the age of 14, he was apprenticed to her and some fellow photographers, including the founder of the GDR’s first color lab. In addition to attending vocational school, which is part of apprenticeship programs in Germany, his mother also arranged additional private lessons for him in mathematics, German, English, P.E. (tennis), History, Art History, and Painting. With this thorough education, especially his rich knowledge of art history and painting, he immediately passed the entrance examination for the Academy of Applied Arts in Magdeburg, which he attended from 1954 to 1957. In the Großkayna lignite mining area, he got to know the dark side of his profession – documenting work accidents that involved casualties with serious or even fatal injuries. From 1958 – 1963, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, graduating with a degree as photographer / photo designer. Until 1971, he worked as a freelance photographer. From 1972 to 1981, he headed a work group at the German Advertising Agency (DEWAG) Berlin, and from 1982 to 1989 he was head of Billhardt studio. Since 1989, Thomas Billhardt has been a member of the German Association of Journalists and since 1990, a member of the Association of Freelance Photo Designers, which also made him an honorary member in 2019. He gained renown through his publications in magazines and exhibitions in many countries. The exhibition accompanying this photobook is his third exhibition in Vietnam, followed by an exhibition in 1972, and a show for the film project “Iced lemonade for Hong Li” in the year 2000 at the Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc. VIETNAM In 1967, Thomas Billhardt travelled to Hanoi for the first time via Moscow, Irkutsk, Beijing, and Nanning. At the time, he was a freelancer for the independent documentary film studio Heynowski & Scheumann. His mission was to make an interview-based documentary film about US-American pilots who had been shot down and captured. For the 1968 film “Pilots in Pajamas”, Thomas Billhardt did the exterior shots. The pictures he took on this trip appeared internationally in the American magazine ‘Life’, in the French ‘Paris Match’, in the West German magazines ‘Stern’ and ‘Spiegel’, and many other magazines. This trip and a follow-up trip to Vietnam resulted in the first traveling exhibition about the war in Vietnam, which was shown in 1969 in the GDR, the Federal Republic of Germany, Sweden, and Moscow. His first illustrated book about Vietnam was published in Leipzig in 1973. Thomas Billhardt traveled to the war-ravaged country six times between 1962 and 1975 and has returned to it six more times since then. The photographs taken during these trips have been published in four illustrated books. “Pilots in Pajamas” (1968), “Longing for Peace: Vietnam” (1973), “Hanoi on the Eve of Peace” (1973) and “Faces of Vietnam” (1978). PHOTO ART Thomas Billhardt describes his pictures as ‘honest’, thus underscoring his independence as an artist who seeks the bare, unbiased view of things. When he hits the shutter button on his camera, the things in front of his lens must be worth capturing, not only because back in the day, negative film was expensive and it took a either lot of money or good connections to get one’s hands on the higher-quality, Western Kodak products, but also because he didn’t work in a studio like his mother, but out in the field, in public spaces. What he tried to capture was irreproducible moments, authentic, sincere images, like a beautiful face in a bleak world, innocent laughter in a harsh, threatening environment, an idyllic everyday moment that makes us forget about fear and war and gives us hope for peaceful normalcy. Thomas Billhardt hails from an era and a world where the demands of privacy require discreteness and respect for the integrity of the individual. However, he could only create compelling photography if he managed to capture private moments, in other words, if he was able to steal a glimpse of this very privacy. As a photographer, he seeks the unadulterated moment, people’s faces before they realize they are about to be captured on film. It is about the moment before they react and try to control their appearance. Capturing this instant, immortalizing people in their candid uniqueness, is what creates the intimacy and warmth of his photographs that stirs empathy in their viewers – for example, with the people of Vietnam. Taking an honest picture is not easy. Today, we pose incessantly in front of cell phone cameras. We post our likenesses on social media, with certain gestures and fake smiles, gleaning ‘likes’ from our followers near and far. But even before the digital age, it was not easy to take a candid shot of a person, because whenever we see a camera, it is our reflex to assume a certain posture, pose, or try to dodge the picture. Thomas Billhardt developed his own unique technique. In public spaces, he used a telephoto lens to get close enough to people, whom he took out of the slogan-ridden socialist reality of the GDR, searching for personalities, moods, and individuality. Another approach was his ‘angle trick’, his technique of photographing around corners. He would hold his reflex camera at eye level, with his eye firmly on the viewfinder, but the lens pointed to the side, which meant he saw everything upside down and reversed in the viewfinder. Over time, he had trained his eye so well that he did even not notice the inversion anymore and was able to find his subject immediately. “I would stalk my ‘victims’ like a wolf, calculate the best exposure time, and estimate the distance so I could pre-set those elements. Then came the moment of deception. When I lifted the camera, I only looked at the screen and could push the shutter button unnoticed. That’s how I captured the actual scene.” After German reunification, people wondered if Thomas Billhardt was a mere state-sponsored artist and how to appraise his success in the authoritarian regime of the GDR in retrospect. He travelled on behalf of state-controlled publishing houses, at the invitation of cultural institutions, but also often on his own initiative. His photographs adorned many state propaganda publications. He was awarded national art prizes. – To live and survive, he had to make many compromises within the rigid framework of a surveillance state. It is true, of course, that Thomas Billhardt supplied the system he lived in with the images it needed. But this was the only way he could survive as an artist, and many independent artists in liberal states and capitalist exploitation contexts are actually in the same boat; they too, must deliver what their system demands. Otherwise, they are doomed to a life of insignificance and rob themselves of any chance to make and impact or communicate a message. Their contributions and critical reflections also make enable their audience to keep going. Structural violence, whether it be greed or political leadership, can only be overcome by cunning resourcefulness or by escaping into niches of freedom. We have already addressed Billhardt’s resourcefulness. Let’s also remember that art always needs free space. For Tomas Billhardt, this was the FDJ student magazine FORUM for a while, then his cooperation with the independent film studio Heynowski & Scheumann. It was this kind of freedom that helped his great work excel. It enabled him to maintain his independence and refine his experience of the world and thus his artistic work. This explains why he virtually skyrocketed in his politically rigid environment as an innovative upstart. Of course, he was often subject to distrust while being officially admired. Time and again, he had to convince doubters through quality and originality. His hard-won success proved him right. Wherever he went, he found himself in a paradox. Was he a revolutionary reporter like Capa? Hardly. He came from a middle-class background, his mother’s private studio. He was raised to be a diligent worker and an educated mind. He did not seek adventure in order to escape his middle-class environment. He wanted to get to the bottom of things and share his insights with the world; his objective was the happy smile of a child. Thomas Billhardt remained true to himself throughout his life. He is a sharply alert, critical explorer of poverty and crisis spots around the world. Children have always been his ambassadors. The fact that his art is political, yet not simplistic, has made him a star in the Western art and photography scene. Since 1999, Thomas Billhardt's work has been exhibited at the renowned photo art gallery CAMERA WORK and has been shown in many locations around the globe. Wilfried Eckstein Director, Goethe Institut Vietnam OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)

Vương ThạoA solo exhibition by VƯƠNG THẠO 13.09 - 23.09.2013 Vuong Thao's Frozen Dreams - September 22, 2013 September 13, 2013 Vương Thạo ARTWORKS GALLERY OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s) Vương Thạo

Located in centre of Hanoi, Manzi is known as one of the most dynamic art spaces in South East Asia. Through art exhibitions, talks, workshops, book introductions, movie screenings, music and dance performances, Manzi's mission is to promote contemporary arts, build new audiences, inspire critical thinking and nurture A site-specific staging by Nguyễn Huy An - Lại Diệu Hà - Nguyễn Trần Nam - Nguyễn Văn Phúc - Nguyễn Trinh Thi - Nguyễn Văn Thủy Open studio: 11.00 AM - 07.00 PM (Wed - Sun) from 23 Feb until 19 Mar 2023 Venues: the front yard of manzi art space - 14 Phan Huy Ích, Ba Đình, Hà Nội & manzi exhibition space - no.2 ngõ Hàng Bún, Ba Đình, Hà Nội There is Light and Darkness Sound and Silence Natural beings and Man-made Objects Remembrance of things past Promise of things that just begin There are Handcrafts along Machines The Original and Imitation Materiality and Dematerialization Flesh and Spirit Divine and Earthly Then Decaying… ...Continue reading Description A shoe A ladder A lightning strike Malevich Hydra The Sound Hòn non bộ (miniature landscape art) A fleeting outline scribbled down, that outline of a Story not yet to be fully-formed just awaiting to be unveiled, but rather of the happenings to be encountered and recorded. Throughout over three weeks, six artists (working in different disciplines: visual arts, performance art, sound & moving images) will collaborate together in a series of “symbiotic experiments”, an open studio simultaneously at two different spaces of manzi. Provoked by an infinite conundrum about More-Than-Human World, ‘The Understories’ simulates a site-specific staging in which many elements/characters would be involved; they can appear suddenly or quietly withdraw, with unexpected movements and mise en scène: A four - rhythm open studio Experimenting with both space and time, 'More than human #1: The Understories ' is not an inert installations. Rather, week after week, the displayed works will transform through four 'Phases' (or we can call them ‘ Rh ythms’ as in Biology / ' Acts’ as in a Play/ ‘Chapters’ as in a Story), Transient & Moving... Each part only lasts for 4 - 5 days Rhythm #4 02.00 PM 15 Mar - 07.00 PM 19 Mar SHOW'S DIAGRAM CURRENTLY ON STAGE