Modern Contradictions of a Romanticized Premodern World in “‘Pho’ Phai and Faux Phais: The Market for Fakes and the Appropriation of a Vietnamese National Symbol”

            Nora Taylor’s “‘Pho’ Phai and Faux Phais: The Market for Fakes and the Appropriation of a Vietnamese National Symbol” explores the proliferation of forged artwork to perpetuate the romanticization of pre-modern society in Hanoi, Vietnam, during its modernization period at the end of the twentieth century. Despite having his artwork censored by the Vietnamese Communist Government for most of his life, Bui Xuan Phai (1920-1988) became a posthumous icon for the Vietnamese art community through his paintings of “Old Hanoi” streets. Trained French Modernist schools, little is known about Phai’s life and origins of his paintings outside of Café Lam, an underground coffee shop that he often frequented. With an almost exclusively non-Vietnamese clientele, “the commodification of Vietnamese art occurred in tandem with the capitalization and globalization of the Vietnamese economy” (233). Foreigners gravitated towards Phai’s paintings for their depiction of the “romantic appeal that Indochina held” (239) and “a view of Hanoi that seemed to be disappearing before their very own eyes” (237) while the local community viewed Phai’s growing popularity as an opportunity to cultivate the Vietnamese art market … through forgeries to supply the growing Western demand (234).  Taylor argues that “because fakes are tied to the world of consumers rather than that of the original artist, they are in a sense a market invention” and compares Phai’s work to that of Van Gogh’s (240). After a certain point, the distinction between a forgery and an authentic piece becomes indistinguishable – even to certain art critics and evaluators. Stating that there are no longer any “real Phais”, Taylor states how “the audience makes the fake … the audience also makes the ‘real’” (243). Real or not, Phai’s work has been crucial in bridging the colonial period and the present in Hanoi, which transitioned from “a dormant colonial city sheltered from the world by the ideology of the state to a bustling commercial center occupied by Western businessmen” (244).

            The rise in popularity for Phai’s paintings as a result of modernity was what ultimately led to the proliferation of “Faux Phais” (forgeries). Exemplifying the notion that modern ideals lead to modern phenomena and truths, the overwhelming Western desire to grasp the nostalgia held within the romanticized associations with Indochina (and Southeast Asia) gave the Vietnamese art market an opportunity to flourish on the international level, something that wouldn’t have been possible without modernity’s intervention. In an ongoing contradiction to recapture an authentic recollection of premodern Vietnam, foreign art collectors brought in by a globalizing and urbanizing stance in Vietnam find themselves leaving with only fakes. Upholding both nationalist and Orientalist notions and narratives, Phai’s paintings simultaneously preserves the images and details of Old Hanoi while perpetuating the fantastical notion of Vietnam held by foreigners.

            In their search for “authentic” artworks, collectors hoped to find fragments of a world that existed before modernity’s intervention destroyed “pure” art. Ironically, the artist whom they praised for his depictions for premodern Vietnam was trained in French Modernist school. Just like the chicken & the egg dilemma (which came first?), one might wonder whether these truths spawned as a result of modernity’s intervention or if modernity developed out of these proceedings.

Questions:

1. Taylor discusses that it does not matter whether a painting is an authentic or a fake so long as it provides the same satisfaction and meaning to its audience. Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?

1. Phai’s forgery came in two forms: paintings that imitate Phai’s style and subject (but signed by another painter) and those painted to look like Phai’s paintings and signed in his name. What are your thoughts about these two forms of forgery? Is one necessarily better than the other? How does brand recognition in the art market contribute to which choice someone would want to use?

Quotes:

1. “While France is trying to correct its image as an evil colonizer by reviving the romantic appeal that Indochina held for French citizens in the metropole, Vietnam is trying to deal with its wartime grief by coming to terms with the psychological wounds from the war. Both of these movements find resonance in Phai’s paintings.” – pg. 239

1. “Phai, in a sense, was invented or created by the emerging art market in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Vietnamese artists were in need of a hero or a martyr of the arts. Someone who embodied the values that they believed constituted a ‘real’ artist. One that did not bend to the authorities, one that never compromised his art for the sake of money, and one who managed to depict in his work a ‘true’ and accurate vision of the city of Hanoi during a time of desolation and economic hardship. He became their collective memory. The one who said it all for all of them. He became the emblem of the nation.” – pg. 243

1. “Phai in a way symbolizes Hanoi and its transition from a dormant colonial city sheltered from the world by the ideology of the state to a bustling commercial center occupied by Western businessmen. He in essence acts as a bridge between the colonial period and the present. He symbolizes the resistance to communism for the Vietnamese and the nostalgia for the colonial era in the minds of Westerners.” – pg. 244