A Mask

A drawing of masks by Vu Dan Tan. It served as designs of masks to be made, or a copy of the finished products. The round-shaped images were usually used by the artist to adorn his woven bamboo baskets or other plants.

In the early 1970s, Vu Dan Tan, who was fond of using mask as an artistic medium, began exploring and experimenting with the possibilities for creating masks with bamboo, dried fruits, woven baskets and other organic utilitarian objects. Masks remained a predominant art form in Tan’s artistic practice by the 1980s, and for many years he considered himself a ‘mask-artist’.

The artist’s studio was initially conceptualised as a place where visitors could appreciate and purchase different kinds of masks. The artist stopped creating masks in the early 1990s with the boom of tourism in Hanoi; local gift shops started to appropriate and simplify his designs of masks and transformed them into a type of mass-produced souvenir.

Access level

Online

author
Publication/Creation date

Early 1980s

Creation place

Vietnam

Medium

Gouache on paper

Content type

artwork documentation

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Rights statement

In Copyright

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This item is covered by one or more copyrights. It is available for research only or use within Hong Kong’s fair dealing rules. Please do not copy, re-use or reproduce this item without the permission of the copyright holder.

A Mask