Chuyển xăng (Petrol Transport)

Artists from Vietnam played an integral role in both the First Indochina War (1946-1954), where they fought for independence from French colonial rule, and the Second Indochina War (commonly known as the Vietnam War or the American War), which continued until 1975. Artists documented conditions for soldiers in the battlefields, as well as for civilians in the cities and the countryside. In the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam or DRV), artists were employed by the military or the state; sometimes their works were created as personal mementoes, but they also created propagandistic and sometimes romantic images to articulate and advocate ideological positions. Sometimes these images were exhibited or published during the wartime. This artwork depicts the transportation of petrol to the front, via the newly-enlarged Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was the collective name for a network of trails and routes through the Trường Sơn mountains in Eastern Laos and Cambodia, via which the North Vietnamese army was able to clandestinely move into South Vietnam and transport vital supplies. According the interviews with the artist, petrol was transported via a railway line that ran parallel to the Ho Chi Minh trail. When the line ended at Thanh Hoá, the petrol was transferred to trucks to continue its journey to the South. The scene shows a documentation of the logistical side of the war.This artwork is part of a significant collection of drawings, sketches, paintings, posters and photographs in Singapore’s National Collection. These works reflect the diversity of artistic production during the First and Second Indochina Wars among artists affiliated with the communist side of the conflict. Many key figures active as war artists during this period have also had a lasting impact on the development of modern art in Vietnam and beyond.