People often think that art is distant and difficult to appreciate, but a garden is different; everyone knows how to admire a flower.
Visitors to Lebadang Memory Space on the outskirts of Huế will see flowers before any of the paintings, sculptures, or installations created by Vietnamese artist Lebadang (Lê Bá Đảng). But it’s incorrect to separate the two. Rather, the large garden that leads up from the gates towards the impressive museum building is part of the art one encounters. To hear the soft flutter of leaves in the breeze, smell the sweet oils emitted by flowers, and feel the sun on your face is to experience the museum and its artwork as Lebadang intended. It is, in his own words, “an immense artwork, a cosmic landscape, a life in harmony with nature and towards eternity.”
One won’t find themselves at the impressive gates of the Memory Space by accident. Located nearly 10 kilometers from the city center, it's situated at the end of a rudimentary road that winds past expensive private homes and valuable land. Be warned, if you take a Grab out there, make arrangements for your return, because no ride-hailing app will work once you’re ready to leave. But trust us, whatever price your driver may request to sit in the shade playing cellphone games while waiting for you will be more than worth it.
Who is Lebadang?
The Lebadang Memory Space, simply put, is easily one of Vietnam’s most impressive museums. The 16,000-square-meter complex on the outskirts of Huế is devoted entirely to the life and work of Lebadang, an artist who is perhaps not as well-known as he should be. Despite his relative obscurity in Vietnam, much has been written about him and one could spend days falling down the rabbit hole of biographical essays, exhibition reviews, and artistic examinations. The museum itself contains a good overview of his life story and insights into his artistic vision, and while there is a certain joy in approaching it with no previous knowledge, a brief overview could be helpful, as well as hearing his perspective: “My artwork is often strange but simple. So everyone can hopefully feel happy and relaxed, and that’s why they like them.”
Born in 1921 in Quảng Trị to a wealthy family, he yearned for adventure, writing in 2005: “I have always wanted to escape from the weather-beaten paddy fields ever since I was a child.” Thus, despite his father's attempts to stop him, he volunteered to work as an Indochine laborer for the French military effort in Europe during WW2. Captured by Germans, he attempted three prison escapes before finally residing in France after the war and embarking on his artistic journey.
Portrait of Lebadang via the official Lebadang website.
After the war, Lebadang studied at the Toulouse Academy of Arts where he received a foundational art education across mediums including painting and sculpture. Enamored with French culture, he found a home within Paris’ artist communities. It was there that he met French-born Myshu (real name Micheline Nguyen Haï), whom he married in 1950; they had a son, Fabrice, also known as “Touty,” in 1951.
His formal studies were followed by poverty and hardships in line with the romantic stereotypes of a “starving artist.” He sold paintings of cats on the street.
As his depictions evolved from the hyper-realistic to more stylized and metaphorical, he drew inspiration from a variety of sources, including the Bodiaer poem, ‘Le Chat’ (The Cat), translated here by Roy Campbell:
Come, my fine cat, against my loving heart;
Sheathe your sharp claws, and settle.
And let my eyes into your pupils dart
Where agate sparks with metal.
Now while my fingertips caress at leisure
Your head and wiry curves,
And that my hand's elated with the pleasure
Of your electric nerves,
I think about my woman — how her glances
Like yours, dear beast, deep-down
And cold, can cut and wound one as with lances;
Then, too, she has that vagrant
And subtle air of danger that makes fragrant
Her body, lithe and brown.
In addition to cats, Lebadang’s early work focused on horses, nude figures and landscapes, often with singular strong lines creating bold and powerful representations. While frequently evoking scenes and themes from his childhood in Vietnam, his early work was conventionally western in style and tradition. Following a visit to Vietnam after 1975, he noted that Vietnam was quite behind the west in artistic development, so, rather than try to innovate from within western traditions, it should rely on its unique cultural identity that stands out on the international stage.
Galleries within Europe took notice of Lebadang early in his career and his exhibitions drew increasingly high-profile coverage with collectors beginning to buy his paintings. An incredibly prolific artist, he was also restless with his mediums and frequently shifted his attention drastically to new materials, such as stacked paper that he would meticulously cut into three-dimensional statues. Over his many decades of restless creation, he worked with calligraphy, engraving and embossed print-making, watercolors, bronze sculptures, wood carvings and even jewelry-making, amongst others.
1980 ushered in a tragedy that had a profound impact on Lebadang’s life and work. His son tragically passed away. His art took on a deep ache and longing that alternated between rage and immense sorrow. “I had to suffer a mental crisis, with a dark mind and a dark soul. It started attacking,” he explained. Touty’s spirit and image became inseparable from Lebadang’s craft, even appearing as the child between parents in the seal that he used as his signature for the remainder of his life.
Upon reaching the roof of the museum, one encounters a devastatingly tender testament to Touty. A mirrored silhouette of a man and woman has a child-sized hole cut out of where one’s heart would be. Through it, visitors can gaze out upon the verdant trees in the distance. A touching tribute to the irreplaceable existence of his only child, the statue also underscores Lebadang’s belief that “beauty is not enough” and all scenery and art should tell a story.
Museum history
Lush lighting lavishing each piece from the precisely perfect angle; thick doors that close with an audible seal keeping in the cool air; elegantly curved walls made with expensive materials mindful of acoustics that cast an introspective hush across the large main room: the museum is a world-class structure that sharply contrasts most other art museums around the country. If the sunlight is falling just so, guests can fully assess the masterful design via the shadows cast on the floor by the sunlight silhouette version of his seal.
Creating the museum was a lifelong dream — “an immense artwork, a cosmic landscape, a life in harmony with nature and towards eternity,” as he described it — realized after his passing in 2015 at the age of 96. Lê Cẩm Tế, a friend and student of Lebadang later in his life, was devoted to making it become a reality. With the blessing of Lebadang’s widow, Myshu, and detailed plans left by the artist himself, construction of the museum began on the land in 2016, Officially opened on April 21, 2019, it contains prized pieces from Lê Cẩm Tế’s personal collection as well as those provided by Myshu.
Amongst the 293 works including elements of his masterpiece ‘Comédie Humaine’ (The Human Comedy), which borrows from writer Honoré de Balzac and represents his own understanding of the human condition. Spread across drawings, watercolors, etchings, collages, sculptures, and lithographs, it is a narration of all the feelings he experienced and perhaps all that humans, in general, could experience, narrated via thousands of faces, each with a unique perspective.
Also prominently featured are several political statues. An outspoken pacifist, Lebadang asked Lê Đức Thọ, the chief negotiator with Henry Kissinger at the 1973 Paris Peace Accord negotiations, to bring him back debris from the B-52s used in the war. Transforming them into painted sculptures of horse heads, human profiles, hands, and birds, they were a call for peace.
More than a beautiful garden, collection of artworks, and presentation of his life and his aristic vision, Lebadang Memory Space is an opportunity to experience an outlook on life. The on-site cafe features some of the simple but indulgent items he would have appreciated. Additionally, an adjacent homestay provides artistic solitude and quiet to soak in the ambiance and slowly take in the stories that Lebadang believed must accompany any natural scenes. While not yet open during our visits in 2022 and 2023, Saigoneer has bookmarked the location for further exploration. If they are anything like the museum, they surely warrant a stay.
Having failed to make arrangements for my return to the city center last year, I walked aimlessly away from the Memory Space. Huế’s relentless heat, the crunch of gravel beneath my feet and the horizon of pine trees in the distance allowed me to reflect on what was a most exceptional visit. Seekers of peace, quiet, a cool climate and, an abundance of nature will certainly consider the couple hours spent pacing the museum worthwhile. Local art lovers will appreciate “discovering” an artist whose creative talents seem under-discussed in his native country while some international devotees of Lebadang schedule globe-trotting pilgrimages to see it. Truly there is no wrong way to enjoy one’s time there as long as you enjoy it. As he said himself: “Man finds sustenance and spiritual nourishment in every source.”
