From September 23rd until October 23rd the Object Image Gallery in Brooklyn, in cooperation with the Galerie L'Indochine, will present an exhibition of original selected paintings, drawings and poster designs by some of these Vietnamese war artists. This exhibition was inspired by the recent exhibition Vietnam: Behind the Lines, organized by the British Museum in London in 1992 and which was the first presentation of its kind in the UK . We hope that this exhibition, to coincide with the 30 year anniversary of the cessation of hostilities between Vietnam and the United States, will provide an opportunity to reflect on the way in which art can transcend politics and reminds us that, whatever our race or nationality, we all share a common humanity.

While Western media coverage provided access to the war for the west, the propagandists of the north were engaged in their own efforts to keep the hearts and minds of their people. In a nation of few movie theaters and fewer television sets, newspapers and magazines, as well as local and village community art exhibitions provided access to both information and images. Strident representations, on walls and billboards throughout Vietnam, of the triumph of communism under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, was reflected in the Socialist Realism of Soviet and Chinese-style propaganda art. Such approaches, however, were not exclusive, and many Vietnamese artists who found themselves in the military continued to draw and paint in the style of 'poetic realism' which they had learned from Art schools established by the French in Hanoi and Hue in the late 19th Century.

During the 1950's and early 60's a debate consumed the Vietnamese artistic establishment, a debate between those who favored the Socialist propaganda approach and those who argued for a more natural and creative realism. Known as the Giai Pham/ Nhan Van Affair, it polarized the intellectual community and ultimately led to the ostracisation and imprisonment of those who advocated freedom from censorship and state restriction.

What the record leaves us with, however, is an interesting juxtaposition of poster and postage stamp design art, reflecting muscular socialism and the glory of the Party and the Workers, together with a large corpus of more sensitive field art drawn and sketched by combat artists. These pen and ink or watercolor sketches, while filled with political passion, are also reflective of the ordinary lives of ordinary people. The style reflects Westernized art college instruction and its French antecedents, but the inspiration is clearly a war of liberation. In the drawings of Nguyen Thu in particular we see soldiers and workers resting, walking, in groups, alone, working in construction or factories. What is noticeable is the dominant role of women in all aspects of the 'revolutionary struggle'. Watercolor and pen and ink sketches of women working in factories, suckling their children, or just sitting alone, present a particularly Asian view of woman as a powerful social and economic, as well as political, force.

Huy Toan's work is more reflective of the victories that ultimately led to the collapse of South Vietnam and the withdrawal of American forces. But among his sketches for postage stamp designs commemorating the battle of Tiet Bien Dien and the fall of Saigon, there are also wistful images of young soldiers, many of them women, along with scenes from village life.