A new experience in my fifties is always an unexpected adventure. Wide round eyes of a child. I don’t know what will happen. I am overwhelmed by the excitement but more so the amusement.
It is my first time attending an exibition of an artist I have translated and shared more than a schooner of beer. The word surreal lacks definition in regards to the cocktail of emotions that painted my blank canvas of expectations.
I drew a blank. What on earth was “Cụ Tượng”? Something about Hàn Mặc Tử, a poet who was famous for the depiction of the moon in his poetry.
I am a stranger in a strange city, and being a stranger is my super power. I tried to catch the eye of those around me, I wanted to understand what “Cụ Tượng” means, it can’t be “Mr. Tuong” according to Google.
– It’s abstract, you’re not supposed to understand it.
– I don’t know, I came here with my husband, my husband used to go to school with the artist.
I surveyed the room, I understood, the opening of an exhibit, a social event. Art connects people. People were everywhere, immersed in conversation. My previous experience in an art gallery has always been solitude. The meaning of the latest body of work by the artist was lost in all the chaos, body heat, chatter.
My ears focused on the rise and fall , notes in Bùi Chát’s voice, his welcome speech. And still, my blank canvas remained whitewashed. Incomprehensible was my first invitation to the opening of an art exhibition.
Incomprehensible but not out of place. I was surrounded by art. I was a part of the exhibit. I am art.
Concrete is the abtract. The concrete abstract. Cụ Tượng.
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm, the blogger, poet, and translator, was born in 1971 in Phu Nhuan, Saigon, Vietnam. The pharmacist currently lives and works in Western Sydney, Australia.
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm 