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DISPATCH: Ho Chi Minh City
By Ruben Luong
Despite encouraging signs, risks remain high for the city's art scene
View from the Bitexco Financial Tower in downtown Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by Ruben Luong for ArtAsiaPacific.This year’s Reunification Day in Vietnam, on April 30, marked 39 years since the capture of Saigon by North Vietnamese forces in 1975. This event led the following year to the merger of North and South Vietnam and to the city’s new name, Ho Chi Minh City. A decade on, the economic reforms known as Doi Moi ("Renovation") inaugurated an auspicious era for artists in the capital, Hanoi, emboldening criticism of the Soviet-style socialist realism prevalent in art schools. Sadly, these freedoms proved short-lived, and the artistic movement associated with Doi Moi has faded.
