Jim Thompson Art Center

Following the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, North and South Vietnam were officially reunified after coexisting as two separate entities for 21 years (1954–75). Marked by the end of the Vietnam War, the post-war period signaled the cessation of war and armed conflict in the unified Vietnam, yet it initiated the complex transformation of the country into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, a title it retains today. This period was characterized by the implementation of rigid government policies, economic repression, strict intellectual censorship and state guidelines on culture and art, which were partly softened in the late 1980s with Doi Moi (Reform and Renovation). It is in Vietnam’s post-war era that the mixed-media exhibition The Game | Viet Nam by LE Brothers rests its focus. Contrary to the Vietnam War’s widely distributed mediatic information-from books documenting the events to Hollywood blockbuster movies-post-1975 Vietnam has been a period much less objectified and appropriated by the public, yet therein crucial in the definition of present- day Vietnam.

In The Game | Viet Nam by LE Brothers, artists Le Ngoc Thanh and Le Duc Hai identical twin brothers who make their art as the LE Brothers examine Vietnam today, four decades after the reunification, by recalling their childhood and past memories, and those of their generation, growing up in a country scarred by war and divided ideologically in the North and South. The brothers were born on April 3, 1975, in Quang Binh province, and just 27 days later, on April 30, Vietnam gained complete independence. In 1991, during Doi Moi, they moved to the city of Hue, only a few kilometers from the 1954 Geneva Agreement demarcation line at the 17th parallel, which divided the two Vietnams. Images of destruction and death haunted their youth and urged them as children to role-play in an imaginary world of peace and healing. With very little resources their childhood games were non-violent confrontations with weapons made of improvised materials. Simulating what was happening in their surroundings, the brothers and their friends were fighting for their own subjective unity.  

Comprising a number of mixed-media works, The Game | Viet Nam by LE Brothers features a compelling 24-channel video installation, itself titled The Game, including an extensive photo installation that documents its development, and revisited military paraphernalia with two largerthan-life rifles, the iconic AR-15 (United States) and AK-47 (former Soviet Union), constructed of exquisite lacquer work—a reference to the LE Brothers’ earlier works and a nod to Vietnam’s traditional fine art. 

Also part of the exhibition is a compact archival section where the postwar period is documented through geographical maps of Vietnam, posters, books and novels that encapsulate the spirit of that period, as well as a series of old photographs taken before Doi Moi of LE Brothers' friends and relatives regardless of North or South Vietnamese origin. The photographs are all in black and white, of a similar style and taken using a similar technique. They represent a portrait of a time defined by totalitarian values that were dominant before the Renovation period.

All together, The Game | Viet Nam by LE Brothers not only reflects on the artists’ individual memories of the past but also engages with communal narratives of the local people to solicit questions and answers about identity and social consciousness as a result of the post-war divide and, ultimately, reconciliation and solidarity.