Don’t Be Fooled by Bowers Exhibit

* Re “About 100 Protest Bowers Show Opening,” June 27:

The exhibit on display at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art is misleading to art patrons who may have been led to believe that this is a good representation of Vietnamese art.

The exhibit is comprised mostly of pieces done after 1975, by artists who were trained by and worked under the supervision of the Communist government. Patrons are led to believe that there is freedom of expression in Vietnam. There is not.

The Bowers Museum, while being able to choose what pieces they showed, had a limited selection to choose from. The Communist government in Vietnam must approve anything shipped out of the country, including art.

Work by South Vietnamese artists before the fall of Saigon has been ignored. So have the works of many artists from the Vietnamese exile community, who have since received international recognition for their work.

This exhibit could be a good introduction for many Americans to the evils of communism, as long as they remember that much of the art is communist propaganda, which has a meaning deeper than what is seen on the surface.

CHAD MORGAN

Chairman

Orange County Young Americans for Freedom