Mai Chung Sold at Auction Prices

Mai Chung, 30, a Saigon sculptor, welds metal compo sitions in a breezy room no more than twelve by six feet square, separated from his wife's kitchen by only a flimsy red cardboard partition. Mr. Chung, who often works in the abstract style, says he dreams of covering huge walls and filling limitless space with his sculptures —but how can he hope to realize his ambitions here? “My studio should be ten times this big!” cries Mr. Chung, designing an arc in the air with his free arm as he wields a welder's torch with the other.

He also longs for more time to work, but his job with the Ministry of De fense permits him only a few free hours a day. Moreover, Mr. Chung's sculptures rarely sell. Those Vietnamese students and intellectuals who view his work in Saigon's Galerie Continentsle—one of the city's few galleries—cannot afford them. Most of his customers are for eigners who do not stay in Saigon long enough to become regular patrons, and prohibitive shipping costs and customs regulations prevent him from showing and selling abroad.

But Mr. Chung persists in his deter mination. Since he cannot obtain bronze, he creates images of beauty with the tools of war—airplane parts, shells and other war souvenirs his friends, army officers, scavenge for him. He has transformed mortars into orchids, cartridges into butterflies. How ever, he insists he is not making statement about war or trying to de velop his own form of Dadaism. He merely needs metal, and this is the only metal available.

Like Mr. Chung, most South Vietna mese artists are reluctant to express their feelings about war on can vas or in clay. They may oppose the war, or their Government—many artists are draft evaders—but they realize they can do nothing to change their situa tion. Communism, many feel, would be worse; for the North Vietnamese and Vietcong compel artists to design prop aganda posters. It is peace, not war, they prefer to portray. For peace is their common dream; and besides, paintings of war just do not sell—es pecially in Vietnam.