Vietnamese Art Exhibit Sparks Peaceful Protest

Outside an art exhibit that has reignited anti-Communist passions in Orange County, Hao Nguyen told a story that immigrants have repeated time and again.

He and his wife came to the United States from Saigon five years ago for all sorts of things--for food, for work, a good bed. But most importantly, he says, it was freedom that brought them to a country where they could speak their minds, where they could spend a Saturday afternoon on Main Street in Santa Ana and--without fear of prison--grind the red flag of Vietnam under their shoes.

Nguyen and his wife, An, stood stood outside the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art with about 100 other people, mostly Vietnamese, protesting “A Winding River,” a traveling exhibit of Vietnamese paintings that opened Saturday. Earlier this year thousands descended on Little Saigon in Westminster to demonstrate against the display of a Vietnamese flag in a Bolsa Avenue video store.

The art exhibit had attracted about 124 visitors by 4:30 p.m. Saturday. Some in the local Vietnamese community have complained that it amounts to propaganda for their homeland’s Communist government.

The protest, which began at 10 a.m., lasted through the afternoon without violence or arrests. Demonstrators carried signs that read, “Human Rights for Vietnam,” “Winding River is Propaganda,” and “In Vietnam Communists use Forces. In America Communists Use Art.”

Bowers officials have said they chose the exhibit, in part, to serve Orange County’s Vietnamese emigre population of 200,000, the largest in the country. But many in that community responded angrily over what they saw as sympathetic depictions of Communist Vietnam. They also were angered by the fact that the museum reversed a decision to remove one of the pictures.

The show was put together by Meridian International Center, a Washington-based nonprofit arts organization, and has toured the United States for 18 months. The drawings and paintings, chosen by an independent panel of American and Vietnamese art experts, include pieces from the 1930s to the 1990s. Most were created in the last five years.

Many are of rural scenes--rain-swept roads, huddled children poring over books, a white house nestled in a blaze of red trees. In others, prewar Hanoi streets are painted in relentless grays and browns, and ancient Vietnamese lacquer techniques are melded to contemporary, abstract stylings.

Beside each piece is a message from the artist. “I would like my art to be laconic and capable of arousing feelings among the viewers,” wrote artist Bao Toan Nguyen of a 1997 work.

From artist Thanh Chau Nguyen: “A work of art acts like a bridge between the artist, who uses the power of visual expression, and the viewer, who reads it like a message.”

The exhibit’s message to visitor Tu Binh, 59, was that the Bowers Museum did not cave in to “mob pressure.” A Westminster resident and refugee from South Vietnam, Binh said he had been following news of the exhibit as it toured the country, eagerly waiting its arrival in Orange County. “Art must reflect the reality of the society, and the society in Vietnam is changing,” Binh said. “The war is over.”