Introduction on 12 artists and 10 writers for the publication Artists: 1. Dao Anh Khanh (b. 1959, Hanoi): The most wellknown performance artist in Vietnam. He started to involve in contemporary art by his first perfomance in 1999. He and his performance art is always in debate of that they are artistic purely or more of entertainment. 2. Tran Luong (b. 1960, Hanoi): The most wellknown contemporary Vietnamese artist and curator abroad. He has been known as a leader of younger contemporary Vietnamese artists. 3. Vu Dan Tan (1946- 2009, Hanoi): the most unique case of contemporary art in Vietnam. He creates his own world of art which is different to all of contemporary art trendencies in Vietnam. 4. Le Quang Ha (b. 1963, Hanoi): he is a painter whose paintings have signed in contemporary Vietnamese painting as the first one of direct and straight speaks of universal contemporary issues such as terrorism, human lust. 5.Nguyen Minh Thanh (b. 1972, Hanoi): his is one of the most wellknown Vietnamese painter and installation artist abroad. His paintings can talk with audience a lot about human psychology as he looks deeply in his own ego to understand human common characters. 6.Truong Tan (b. 1963, Hanoi, living in Paris and Hanoi): he has influenced much on his younger colleagues because through his art, one can see his ego as well as his sincerity to his own ego. At the same time, his art, painting and installations and performances, is like forever songs of aesthetics. 7.Nguyen Bao Toan (b. 1950, Hanoi): his installation art has revealed that traditional Vietnamese aesthetics can be much suitable with contemporary challeging art. 8.Jun Nguyen Hatsushiba: his father is Vietnamese and his mother is Japanese. His most wellknown art work is the video art of cyclo under the water. He has been invited to participate in many prestigious biennales in the world. 9. Dinh Q. Le (b. 1969, South of Vietnam): He is a Vietnamese immigrating into the US when he was small. His art practice can be said as the most unique of the contemporary art world. He cuts photographs into pieces and weave them into "paintings" which are represent strongly Vietnamese victims of Agent orange. His special paintings are introduced in many art museums as well as in special collections of international art galleries. 10. Dinh Y Nhi (b.1967, Hanoi): Perhaps, she is the first female painter in Vietnam who refused the traditional type of decorative art on painting. She paints human fears and human homogenization in the globalization times. 11. Ly Tran Quynh Giang (b. 1978, Hanoi): she has chosen a very hard road of art, doing mono- woodcuts as original painting. Her art work presents her independence of personality and through this art, the womanly qualities are revealed in spite of contemporary social pressure and unequality. 12. Ly Hoang Ly (b. 1975, Hanoi, living in HCMC): She is the most wellknow female performance artist in Vietnam. She has been invited to many performance art festivals and biennales in the world as an example from Vietnam and Asia. Her art focuses on traditional Vietnamese and Asian female destiny and its traces in the contemporary life. Writers: 1. Prof. Đo Lai Thuy (b. 1946, Hanoi): Firstly, he is a wellknown literary critic. He has investigated much in psychoanalytic theory born by S. Freud and K. Jung. That helps him in his main research field of literature. With the literary neighbor, visual art and contemporary art, specially in the Vietnamese context, his love for it has been growing since he was very young. Therefore, writing an essay on contemporary art in Vietnam is not very far from his background and experiences. 2. Nora A. Taylor: Professor of Southeast Asian Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is author of Painters in Hanoi: An Ethnography of Vietnamese Art (Hawaii, 2004 and NUS Press, 2009) and numerous articles on Vietnamese modern and contemporary art. She is also curator of several exhibitions including: “Changing Identity: Recent Works by Women Artists from Vietnam,” for International Arts and Artists; “Blue Memory: An Installation by Tran Trong Vu,” ASU Art Museum, 2004 and “Breathing is Free: New Work by Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba,” co-curator with Heather Lineberry, ASU Art Museum and SAIC. She received her PhD from Cornell University in 1997. She has lived and traveled in Vietnam off and on since 1992. 3. Iola Lenzi: A lawyer by training, is a Singapore-based critic and independent curator specialising in the contemporary visual art of Southeast Asia. She is the Singapore correspondent for The Asian Art newspaper, London, a contributing editor to C-ARTS Jakarta/Singapore, as well as a frequent contributor to other international art publications. 4. Trang Thanh Hien: She is a lecturer for the Hanoi University of Fine- Arts. 5.Vu Duc Toan: He is a young and independent art critic. He was graduated at the Department of Art history and critism, Hanoi University of Fine- Arts in 2007. 6.Bui Nhu Huong: She had many years working at the Deparment of Modern and Contemporary Art, Institute of Fine- Arts, Hanoi University of Fine- Arts. She is one of the most prestigious art critic in contemporary Vietnam. Her latest work is entitled Vietnamese New paintings in the 1990s, a bilingual book, published in Hanoi in 2001. 7.Natalia Kraevskaia: she is the owner of salon Natasha, the most wellknown contemporary art place in Vietnam. It is regretfully closed about three years ago but till now, its name is still very clear in the Vietnamese art cicle as well as in the region. She is a Russian doctor of linguistics. 8. Nguyen Phuong Linh: she is an emerging contemporary artist in Vietnam. She is one of the most talented 8x female artists who are bringing to contemporary Vietnam a new artistic appearance. She got the first prize of Contemporary Vietnamese- Italian art contest organized by the Italian Embassy in Hanoi and went to Italy to experience contemporary art life there in 2008. 9. Moira Roth (b. 1933, London): Trefethen Professor of Art History, Mills College, Oakland, California, the USA, is a feminist art historian and critic who writes and lectures extensively on contemporary art. 10. Vu Lam (b.1977, Hanoi): He has been working as a cultural reporter for Nhan Dan Newspaper. He was graduated at the Department of History and Criticism, the University of Fine- Arts of Vietnam. 11. Dao Mai Trang (b. 1976, Hanoi): Editor of Contemporary Art Column, Culture & Arts Magazine, The Ministry of Culture, Sports & Tourism of Vietnam.

The first bilingual publication on 12 contemporary artists of Vietnam During the past two decades, at least three generations of Vietnamese visual artists have emerged and worked together, not only to reach the Vietnamese public, but to expand the borders of their art to the rest of the world. In other words, they are beginning to display their works with more conficence, overcoming the preconceptions of foreign audiences. Vietnam has become a destination for more and more foreign artists, as well as for artists of Vietnamese heritage raised overseas. Exchanges between artists living inside and outside Vietnam are enjoying more opportunities for expansion and improvement. As for Vietnamese visual art itself, it is experiencing an important turning point in form, content, and perception. Today, Vietnamese visual art is no longer limited to certain closed genres, such as painting, sculpture, and graphic art, but has now expanded to include genres that are more flexible in their use of space and time, widening our conception of art. The twelve contemporary artists of Vietnam included in this book are all very different from each other in their background, lifestyles, ways of thinking, and work. Their common ground (if it can be called that) is perhaps the conviction that art is more than just the voice of the individual, for the individual, and by the individual. Their art is a challenge to themselves and to the viewer in terms of habits of thinking about art, emotional habits, and behavioral habits as they vary according to society, individual inclinations, and current events. The sole aim of this book is to furnish readers both inside and outside Vietnam with information on the life of contemporary Vietnamese art, with due respect paid to all the artists mentioned herein, in hopes of encouraging them to continue facing to the challenges of their respective career paths. The book is colored, including 210 pages at size 24cm x 25cm and published by The Gioi Publishers. The Cultural Development and Exchange Fund (CDEF), Embassy of Denmark in Hanoi, generously sponsored for the translation of this book project. Dao Mai Trang (chief editor)