End of the Cold War in the late 80s, Vietnamese visual art began to show signs of transformation. The topic has been changed from workers, farmers, soldiers, and intellectuals to birds, flowers, women, and landscapes (instead of the way it is called Bird, Flower, Fish, Girl). Art as it is — returning to reflect life, mood, love, and nature — is instead to propagate, praise, and illustrate will-thinking ideas.

However, although it is always mentioned as the Open Door period, the innovation is only compared to the previous art of propaganda and illustration, the theme of “birds, flowers, fish, girls” is nothing new compared to the previous period of the art of Indochina fine art school.

Doi Moi art has more diversity than before in terms of painting figuration, but there is no clear social attitude in both thought and content. Has not yet broken through in form to keep up with changes and reflect issues such as urbanization, industrial development, and social events.

Therefore, with a journey of just over a decade, the Open Door painting quickly became marketized and merged into the flow of consumption.

Beginning in the late 1990s, the appearance of performance artists was a new phenomenon in Vietnamese society. An ephemeral art form less bound by rules and academic knowledge. Loose, difficult to control by space, time, sanctions, material and technical standards. Especially in the local context, performance art is a suitable art form for artists to have more opportunities for freedom of expression.

With diverse and improvised forms, and winged by metaphorical or conceptual methods. This art form can untangle the problems that object art such as paintings and sculptures that are isolated by spatial and administrative conditions, and the syndrome of self-censorship has become widespread due to the pressure of the censorship system.

Lim Dim Performance Art Festival happened in October 2004.

It is an “outside the system” festival initiated and organized by Tran Luong with the cooperation of local artists, art organizations, domestic enterprises, and foreign cultural institutes.

The festival brought together performance artists from Vietnam and artists from Japan, England, Singapore, and Germany.

It is an opportunity for local performance artists to experiment and exchange information related to performance art (a new branch of visual arts that appeared in Vietnam in 1995).

The festival happened at a time when international experimental artists wanted to visit Vietnam to learn about the newly opened, little-known social environment. It is also an opportunity for them to seek out diverse local experiences and absorb a new source of creative energy.

2022, Trần Lương