02/02/2023
Yesterday, I had a chance to visit the new exhibition, held by VCCA, called “THIS IS NOT A DREAM”. That was an astonishing experience for me when I was lucky to be given the opportunity to stand in front of the masterpieces of two admirable artists, Rene Magritte & Frida Kahlo.
Among all the great pieces of art, I was fascinated by an artwork of Magritte, named ‘Golconda’. From the exhibition's description, they quoted Rene Magritte's saying, “Things that are visible can be invisible. However, our ability to think captures both tangible and intangible things – and I use painting to make thoughts visible.” That saying is a part of the many reasons why I have been drawn to this painting. The artist created a pattern of men and arranged the pattern wisely to make a rainy scene when we spot the painting from a far distance. When looking closer at the painting, we may imagine all the men’s positions in many different ways, they may stand still in the air, fly up or fall down like raindrops. Taking a closer look at their clothes, the hats and coats were regular clothes in Magritte’s period of time.
VCCA did a great job of designing the exhibition space when they chose to scale all the artworks up and show them on televisions and projectors. ‘Golconda’ at VCCA was approximately three times bigger than the actual size of the original ones. The projectors helped visitors to communicate better with the artwork when it was surrounded by darkness and being shown in massive size, I had the feeling of me walking inside the painting and being a part of it. The exhibition also played a classical playlist of songs to spice up the experience.
As Charly Herscovici commented on Golconda: “Magritte was fascinated by the seductiveness of images. Ordinarily, you see a picture of something and you believe in it, you are seduced by it; you take its honesty for granted. But Magritte knew that representations of things can lie. These images of men aren't men, just pictures of them, so they don't have to follow any rules. This painting is fun, but it also makes us aware of the falsity of representation”
GDH220242 Vu Nguyen Khanh Linh
