Art, Politics and Dialogue at the Bowers

Santa Ana City Councilwoman Alberta D. Christy stood Sunday before a painting entitled “Mother’s Heart.” In the brightly colored work, a mother and daughter are praying at what appears to be a family altar decorated with pictures of lost loved ones, soldiers--some wearing Communist caps.

To Christy’s right, Nancy Pham, 19, argued that the 1994 painting is nothing more than “propaganda.”

“This is an inaccurate portrayal showing a daughter and a mother revering Communist soldiers,” said Pham, a recent graduate of Garden Grove High School.

But Christy disagreed.

“I see this as a picture of a grandmother teaching a child about ancestors and honor and respect,” she told Pham in a hushed gallery at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana. “What mother doesn’t mourn her children?”

Christy was one of about 250 people Sunday who viewed “A Winding River: The Journey of Contemporary Art in Vietnam” at the museum. The controversial exhibit has drawn steady criticism that it glorifies communism. Sunday, about 140 protesters, mostly Vietnamese, peacefully picketed outside the museum, wheeling around a 5-foot dummy made to resemble former Communist leader Ho Chi Minh.

But despite--or perhaps because of--the protesters, the exhibit has drawn people who may not ordinarily have come.

And some have found a much more interactive viewing experience. Instead of shuffling from painting to painting in silence, or listening to an automated voice talk about a work’s history, viewers at the Bowers found themselves engaged in discussions of each work’s meanings with young Vietnamese students.

In front of one work, an older Vietnamese man argued with a young woman that in America he should be free to view whatever piece of artwork he wanted--Communist or not.

Some museum patrons Sunday said they felt compelled to see the exhibit after hearing about the protests.

Robin Simmons, 38, drove from San Diego on Sunday morning to celebrate her mother’s birthday. They breakfasted at the museum.

“I had no desire to see this until I heard about the protests,” she said, as demonstrators collected on the sidewalk in front of the museum, carrying signs that read “Human Rights for Vietnam,” and “Winding River Is Propaganda.”

“There’s no such thing as bad press,” Simmons added.

Bowers Museum officials chose the exhibit partly to serve Orange County’s Vietnamese emigre population of 200,000, the largest in the country.

But many in that community protested that the exhibit contained sympathetic depictions of Communist Vietnam.

They also were upset that the museum reversed a decision to remove one of the most controversial pictures.

Christy said she went to the museum Sunday for a little respite from her job and to appreciate art. She got a little bit more.

“I learned today that we live in a great country where you can bring in freedom of expression and you can mobilize people through art,” she said. “If we weren’t in a free society, we would not have people bringing the human rights violations to our attention.”

But Christy said, for her, the exhibit was simply “exquisite. I don’t see any political agenda at all. Art is supposed to transcend all that.”