One of Vietnam’s most significant artists had quite the back story. Điêˇm Phùng Thį (1920-2002) was among Vietnam’s first modernist female sculptors; she was also the first woman in the country to graduate from dentistry school. She came to her career in art relatively late, at the age of 40, having first served in the First Indochina War (1946-54) against the French; somewhat ironically, she moved to France soon afterwards and remained there until 1992, when she returned to Vietnam. Last autumn, Điêˇm’s work unexpectedly popped up at Reincarnation of Shadows, a solo exhibition by 36-year-old Vietnamese artist Thao Nguyen Phan at Pirelli HangarBicocca, a former industrial plant in Milan which has been converted into a non-profit contemporary art institution.
“She was extremely brave, from her political involvement [fighting against the French] to the fact that she made a deliberate choice, leaving a job with a stable income to be an artist,” says Phan of Điêˇm. Phan’s fascination with Điêˇm began as a child, when she first encountered her work
