Thirty years ago, Vietnam won the "American War" and set out on a path toward its miraculous rebirth. Susan Hack finds a land that has unified not only North and South, but an honored past and a rich future

In his Hanoi atelier, decorated with antique Buddhas and other family heirlooms, the Vietnamese artist Le Quang Ha shows me canvases that recently caused consternation among officials of the ruling Communist party. From a red backdrop, dogs with black eyes and oversized teeth snarl at the viewer; in another painting, a woman performs fellatio on a man with an American flag draped over his head. Artists who once served the state are now free to paint what they want in Vietnam, and much of the contemporary market consists of peaceful rural scenes and graceful girls in flowing white ao dai, subjects that had been banned as frivolous but which now appeal to artists able to explore them for the first time—and to Western buyers with a romanticized view of the country's past. Nudes were another verboten subject, and here Le Quang Ha delights in pushing the boundaries. The forty-two-year-old chain smoker is particularly proud of three panels depicting a hideously obese old man, wearing nothing but red high heels, who squats while alternately grimacing and grinning. "What's it called?" I ask, wondering if the fat-man triptych, reminiscent of Francis Bacon, is supposed to be a commentary on three pervasive themes I've repeatedly come across in Vietnamese society: communism, consumerism, and corruption. Le Quang Ha replies, "I call this piece Taking a Shit." Quite a departure from the state-sanctioned works hanging over in the National Museum of Fine Arts, boasting titles such as The Enemy Burnt Down My Village and When the Shift Is Over Let's Meet and Enter the Best Female Worker Contest.

It's been thirty years since victorious North Vietnam reunited with the defeated South. After the first, ruinous decade of farm collectives and state-controlled enterprise, the government embraced open market principles in 1986, and in the ensuing entrepreneurial whirlwind, Vietnamese art has become faddish in the way that Soviet pieces became collectable after glasnost. Private galleries abound, and artists, some of whom exhibit overseas and sell works for tens of thousands of dollars, are among Vietnam's first wave of "pink" millionaires.

The government, which once shipped its critics off to reeducation camps, still draws the line in some cases when it comes to freedom of expression. Around the time of my visit last June, officials banned stage performances by skinheads and anyone sporting "horror hair" or skimpy costumes. They also warned the judges of state television's version of American Idol to stop making sarcastic, cruel comments about budding pop stars; Simon Cowell-style nastiness, apparently, is not in line with Vietnam's "national identity." Says Le Quang Ha, whose last Hanoi exhibition was shut down by the state's Cultural Committee, "The government still thinks culture is something that can be controlled, and that art should be nice. I fight with myself not to make something beautiful, to show the truth. It gives my painting meaning, to shake people up and change their habits of viewing."