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It wasn’t until after the communists took over Vietnam in 1975 that a young girl and her family were finally able to return to Saigon—Ho Chi Minh City, where they used to live before the Vietnam War. What they discovered there, was a partially evacuated metropolis. All of the Americans had fled and anyone who had an association with them had done their best to do so also. There were many deserted buildings and the rule of thumb at that time for returnees, was to simply move into one and make it home. |
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Art?…Bar? – Hisa Yamamoto
“I cannot forget the Snake Bar’s grim neon light…”
It wasn’t until after the communists took over Vietnam in 1975 that a young girl and her family were finally able to return to Saigon—Ho Chi Minh City, where they used to live before the Vietnam War. What they discovered there, was a partially evacuated metropolis. All of the Americans had fled and anyone who had an association with them had done their best to do so also. There were many deserted buildings and the rule of thumb at that time for returnees, was to simply move into one and make it home. The space that this particular family found was an empty “snake bar,” a term coined by the locals for a bar where US soldiers had frequented to meet Vietnamese women. The young girl was frightened by the ghostly atmosphere of the empty bar, as even though the people had gone, the lights remained on and empty bottles of beer were left everywhere. It was as though the people had just walked out the back door as she had entered the front door, leaving their sinister presence behind.
Now 30 years later, the young girl, Miss Mai Do Tuyet is somewhat grown up, a successful business woman and Executive Director of Saigon Biennale. A good friend of Rodney Dickson, she has helped him in his research into the effects of war and when he heard this story, he became intrigued by it and decided to recreate “The Snake Bar.”
Hisa Yamamoto: You’ve had “The Snake Bar” in three places so far; The Engine Room Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland, Roger Smith Gallery in midtown Manhattan and the second floor of Jack the Pelican Presents Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I heard that all of them were very successful. Did the bar change in these different galleries, cities, countries? If so, what was the change?
Rodney Dickson: Yes. I wanted the bar to be different each time because it involves the people in each different place.
For example it was quite different because of the people when I did it in Manhattan in comparison to Belfast. In Manhattan, people were shocked by the wildness of the bar, but in Belfast they thought nothing of that. However in Manhattan the people were not so shocked by the “Asianness” of the bar, whereas in Belfast many of the people had never spoken to an Asian person before. Also, in the US, people have an association with Vietnam because of the war, but Ireland had no involvement in that war and as such no reason to think about Vietnam. However it was very relevant to them in another way, as my bar is about the effects of war. These effects are still very present in Belfast; in fact someone was shot dead a few blocks from the bar, a few days before we opened. These social situations interest me very much. If it was the same each time, it would be boring for me.
In my personal opinion, the best version was the one in Jack the Pelican Presents, during the Armory Show. It was actually the living space of Mr. Don (the director of Jack the Pelican Presents Gallery) and a shit hole! The entrance stairway was very dark and seedy, not unlike some dive that still exists in Saigon today. It made the people a little uneasy as they entered the bar, just as it should be in this kind of bar. “The Snake Bar” should be terrible, so Don’s place was ideally suited to the kind of atmosphere I wanted to create. The two other places also succeeded, but they were art galleries and the bar I created in them was much nicer. That was OK too, but I always had an ambition to make a real shit hole, I think I achieved that in the Jack the Pelican show.
HY: So the atmosphere of the space was different from before?
RD: Yeah.
HY: What about the people who came to the bar?
RD: When I had the bar in Roger Smith Gallery in Midtown, some business men, who wanted to have a few drinks after work, came in. I guess they thought it was a real Asian bar. But what they encountered was mayhem! Many people in the bar were already drunk and beautiful girls were serving free beer, in fact most of them were drunk too. The business men might have hoped to have charmed one of the girls. They looked frightened and excited at the same time, probably thinking “what the fuck’s going on here?” I don’t think those guys ever realized it was art. Yet the people, who visited the JTP show, were mostly interested in art, because it was in Williamsburg and during the Armory Show. So they were more understanding of the situation, but although they knew it was art, some of them felt confused about how a bar could be art. Maybe they just thought it was bad art.
HY: I guess that’s true. I remember that people sometimes asked for fancy drinks such as wine and cocktails. Since the bar had only bottles of Vietnamese beer and shots of Vodka (not even water!), they seemed confused at the beginning. Yet I think they enjoyed the bar and understood it was related to art eventually.
RD: But even if people don’t think it’s art, it doesn’t matter to me, because it’s an interesting question: “Is it art or not?” Think about the early days of contemporary art. When Jackson Pollock started his drip paintings, people said “it’s not art.” When performance art first started, people said “it’s not art.” People might argue that about my Bar, saying that it’s just cute Asian girls serving beer, that it is merely entertainment. I’m OK with people thinking like that, I hope they enjoy it.
HY: So, you think at least the bar makes people think about art, to question the limits of acceptance as art?
RD: Yes. “The Snake Bar” can be art for them someday, don’t you think? I hope it also makes them question aspects of society.
HY: The main part of the project is the aftermath of war, which Miss Mai saw when she entered the “Snake Bar” in April 1975 and described to you. The one in JTP didn’t have an aftermath though, that the people could visit later. How did you feel about that?
RD: That’s true. The original concept for the bar was that it should have this emptiness, this ghostly atmosphere, as the aftermath. In fact the nights when the bar was open and people were partying in it, was only in order to create the chaos for later. The customers were actually creating the art, by drinking. I couldn’t do it though; it was Don’s place, as in an actual living space. So the people that lived there would not like to live in my stinking bar for a few weeks. It was a new situation to me and then Don suggested changing the concept to “the last night for Americans in Vietnam.”
HY: Wow, so all the visitors that night was supposed to be the American army?
RD: Well, I guess none of them thought about it. The place was a kind of experiment to me and I had to rethink about my “Snake Bar” in order to do it there. I don’t want to repeat the same thing in my work, so I think the place gave me a good opportunity to develop the concept.
HY: You are going to have the bar in Los Angeles this October. On the West coast there are many Vietnamese-Americans, much more than in New York. Some of them are still very anti-Vietnamese Communist and still bear a grudge from the war. I am afraid that you will piss them off.
RD: I don’t think they will be pissed. If they come to my bar when we are serving, they will have fun! I have many Vietnamese friends, from the South and the North, even veterans from all sides including American. No one ever complained about the bar from a political perspective. I am not taking a side, I am against all wars.
HY: There is no Vietnamese or American flag in your bar, but I think there might have been those flags during the war. Do you have any reason not to put the flags in your bar?
RD: Yes, I can imagine that there would have been perhaps both a US flag and the South Vietnam yellow and red striped flag. I considered this, but decided to not include these as it would polarize the piece and would imply some political allegiance. You know that in Vietnam it is illegal even today to show that South Vietnam flag?
HY: I see. This concept flows through all of the work, I remember you telling me this once in relation to your paintings.
RD: Absolutely. I was born in Northern Ireland and experienced the terrorist war there. This was not a real war when we think about huge armies ranged against each other, not that kind of war. However what I am interested in is the more subtle and long term effects of war, the trauma that continues after the killing on the battle fields has ended. How it fucks up the society and how this feeds through on every level, even to people that had no direct experience of the violence.
People become narrow minded, paranoid, violent, intellectual development is stunted et cetera: In Northern Ireland the trouble is ‘officially’ over now, more or less, but still the violence continues. The people do not know how to live in peace; they can not adjust overnight to a normal society. A more extreme example of this is Cambodia, which I have begun to visit a few years ago, to do research for my work. That society was virtually destroyed by the Khmer Rouge, a situation that was enabled by the US destabilizing the region by its involvement in Vietnam, something similar to what is going on in Iraq today.
My bar references these as well as many other wars and the chaos left behind in the bar, symbolizes the aftermath of war. In the end, someone has to pick up the pieces and clean up the shit.
“The Snake Bar” is fun and tragic, entertainment and strong social comment, art and possibly not art. Rodney believes it is all of these and is happy if some people don’t agree with him. As he said, it is better to drink in his bar than to have a bomb dropped on your head, I guess this sums up his message and…..
HY: Yes Rodney, I do agree, let’s have a drink!….
