In this exhibition there are two attempts, separated by time yet occurring in the same space, to rehabilitate and give voice to an overlooked history. One is Peter Weiss’ effort, in his 1968 play “Viet Nam Discourse”, to present the history of the anti-colonial struggle in Vietnam, not only against the then ongoing American aggression but also against the Chinese, Japanese and French throughout its history. The other is the practice of designer Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss, whose significant contribution to the works of Weiss, in set and costume design as well as in art direction, has been largely overlooked.
The story of Palmstierna-Weiss is a painfully familiar one. An innovative and influential female designer, whose illustrious career included, aside from close collaboration with Weiss, works with Peter Brook and Ingmar Bergman, she has been given a pitiful amount of credit. As Weiss wrote his plays with little visual specifications, the creation of the aesthetic aspects, including stage directions and set, was Palmstierna-Weiss’ responsibility, a contribution that would have earned her the title of co-director at a minimum were it not for her gender. When “Notes on the cultural life of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam”, a travelogue and reflection on Vietnamese politics and culture she co-wrote with Weiss, was published in 1968, the publisher omitted her name from the cover and she was not acknowledged as its co-author. This exhibit by Marion von Osten and Peter Spillmann goes some way to correct this omission and present the practice of Palmstierna-Weiss in its own right.
The main part of the exhibition consists of costume and prop drawings by Palmstierna-Weiss for “Viet Nam Discourse”, film and photographic documentation of the premiere of the play in Frankfurt in 1968, various archival material including the travel photos from Vietnam taken during the trip that became the aforementioned book and an interview with Palmstierna-Weiss. It also includes ample videos and texts, most notably the film “Russell Tribunal” (1967) by Staffan Lamm which documented the international gathering denouncing the Vietnam War in Stockholm instigated by Bertrand Russell. These diverse materials are presented in the display designed by von Osten and Spillmann.
In terms of aesthetic value, Palmstierna-Weiss’ drawings by far outshine everything else. These exquisitely executed drawings successfully marry the concise and reduced language of modernist design with carefully selected elements from Vietnamese visual culture such as animal motifs, fans and parasols. The fluency of their synthesis suggests her extensive study and deep affinity with the Vietnamese aesthetic language, rather than superficial exoticism, and the historical accounts support this impression. The sparse lines of these drawings were translated into an elegant and minimal stage, as can be seen in the documentation of the performance. Because the artistic strength of these drawings is considerably superior to the rest of the exhibits, the show as a whole unfortunately feels a little unbalanced. Still, it is a pure delight to behold these rarely seen treasures.
The stated aim of this show is to “activate” the historical material, as well as to “put on parts of Viet Nam Discourse in Sweden for the first time ever”. To this end, the significant part of the exhibition is devoted to talks, workshops, performances and screenings. This desire to revisit the historical moment in progressive politics in order to excavate and repurpose an intellectual/cultural toolkit for pressing contemporary issues is understandable and often gives rewarding results. However, this engagement with a rich and fascinating past is a double-edged sword, and this show displays the signs of its pitfalls. As the show is filled with diverse materials and packed with activities, all with relevant historical contexts and urgent political messages, the exhibition became a little diffused. The cacophony of interesting elements, the iconic political theatre, the oeuvre of an overlooked female artist, the 1960s student activism, the historical gathering of great minds in Stockholm, etc., has the regrettable effect of blunting the sharpness of the individual components.
Research as art practice, and presentation of research as exhibition, is an established strategy that developed over the last three decades and whose validity is no longer in question, nor is it any longer novel. In other words, research is a medium like any other, such as painting or photography. Therefore, the quality of research, its depth and volume, does not alone guarantee the quality of the artwork or the exhibition, in the same way an expensive paint or a slab of Carrara marble does not guarantee the success of a painting or a sculpture. This means that a research-based exhibition must be judged according to the same criteria used for accessing exhibitions in all other formats, namely by its aesthetic quality, effective and precise delivery of its message, depth of intellect and the intricacy of its dialogue with the past and the present. This exhibition has several strong aesthetic moments, and its critical analysis of colonialism and its present aftermath is undoubtedly relevant. Yet, it lacks something to be truly successful, and I believe that the problem is essentially an editorial one. The artists seem to have too much reverence for their subject and were not brutal enough in the editing of their research material to create a focused presentation, which prevented their show from really coming together.