Vandalism

Vandalism or a reaction to perceived bad art?

That eerie building again!

I sneaked into that building again (see In a Hanoi university). Again that eerie feeling. Would that door be chained and locked behind me? And I'd be left in this deserted, dusty and dirty building? I heard some group singing but that could come from outside.

Some sculptures I had seen looked different. So they ARE work in progress! Other sculptures in the corridor were no longer there and I noticed that the floor had been swept. But of course this run down building was in use, just not on a Sunday. 

Nearby, my daughter had a drawing class in a cleaner building for boarding students. On the regulations board, among the things prohibited was "psychological warfare materials from the enemy".

Elsewhere in the university, there was an exhibition of huge paintings. Streets and public places in Hanoi with busy traffic but not the vaguest hint of human beings. These were interspersed with paintings of war planes and tanks. Human beings were on separate canvases  - huge expressive heads...

In a Hanoi university

I was attracted to a building by two sculptures at the front. Two women, one holding a bunch of rice stalks and a hammer, the other a (broken) rifle. Run-of-the-mill sort of artwork of the pre-doi moi period, a bit out of place in Hanoi near the end of 2008, I thought.

Still looking at the sculptures, out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone walking through a door into the building. There was a huge heap of dirt just inside that door next to the stairs to the next floor.

Cautiously I went inside knowing that I was trespassing. The building was surely derelict, if not deserted. In Hanoi where land was at a premium? Green moss on a damp wall. Brown marks on another wall where white ants had eaten a wooden board. Dusty and dirty classrooms. Yet there was drawing of an anatomy lesson on a board and writing about pre-historic art on another...

I did not see that person again in the three storeys I explored. It felt like a scene from a Murakami novel.