Saigon’s Galerie Quynh: a decade of get up and go

A street sweeper pauses his broom in the middle of the night. From the shadows of the empty asphalt, he looks at two people sleeping in a glowing-red shop window. A ceiling of crimson roses and red velvet walls cradle the sleepers nested in vermillion satin. One night, 500 people gathered to see the softly lit, red bed. How many of the passers-by would be just as surprised to hear that the sleeping beauties were making art?

The 12 night-long performance was the first street-view art exhibition of its kind in Vietnam. The artist Sue Hadju created Magma: we’re not counting sheep in 2006, and it is one of the highlights of Galerie Quynh’s first decade of existence. The project is testament to the gallery’s mission: to bring innovative art to the Vietnamese public. ‘We didn’t get sponsorship, we had nothing for sale’, says Quynh, the gallery founder. ‘We wanted to support it. We never really thought about sales.’

Naturally, the event did not generate any revenue, but it did put Galerie Quynh on the international radar. Publications like Art In America, or the London-based Contemporary magazine, featured it.

Another milestone was being able to exhibit the work of Japanese-American artist Bruce Yonemoto. Getting famous international artists to come and show in Vietnam is about as easy as getting Madonna to sing at your wedding.

Worldwide, Galerie Quynh is still probably the best known, if not the only known, Vietnamese gallery. Art historian Quynh Pham left her job in a well-known museum in California to return to her Asian homeland to found it. In 2003, when the gallery opened, Vietnam had very little in terms of an art scene.

In the 1990s, Salon Natasha and Nhasan studio, two artist-run spaces established in Hanoi, had opened the doors to contemporary art in Vietnam. At the turn of the millenium, international backing provided more cultural spaces in Hanoi, such as the Goethe Institute, the Ford Foundation, Alliance Francaise’s L’Espace, the British Council and the Danish Cultural Development and Exchange Foundation. Private galleries started popping up on Vietnam’s high streets, but most were just shops that sold paintings. They were not galleries that worked with artists to develop their careers and raise public awareness of contemporary practices.

Many commercial painting shops remain, but a lot of the important galleries have now closed. Blue Space, Ryllega, Bui gallery…

‘We’ve been knocked down so many times. It’s easy to give up’, Quynh comments, revealing her steely resolution to keep working hard to make her project mature. Disaster moments include the all-too-common having to move location, for the second time, because after renovating the venue, the landlord wants it back. Grit, and plenty of hard work, can solve most problems. ‘We all know that success does not come overnight’, Hoang Duong Cam, one of the gallery artists confirms, ‘we, together, shed a lot of sweat and tears to get to where we are right now.’

When things seem hard, they usually get worse. The financial crisis slowed down global business even in buzzing Vietnam. ‘2009, 2010 were very hard years for us’, Quynh comments. Her clients, many of them Westerners, mostly live outside of Vietnam. Most gallerists in Vietnam are working hard to develop a collector base among the local population, and Quynh is no exception in trying to build relationships with wealthy Vietnamese businesspeople, who, for now, show little interest in art as a monetary and cultural investment.

It’s not easy for a gallery to survive in a country where the majority of people don’t even think of looking at art, let alone buying it. ‘For the longest time’, Quynh recalls, ‘I would say for about 8 years, it was running like an art centre.’ Not quite like a non-profit, she clarifies, but only just managing to sell enough to continue their programming and fund their exhibition catalogues. Galerie Quynh has printed over a dozen publications on their artists.

The biggest challenge happened very recently. Contemporary art takes many forms and mediums, and as any cinema-goer knows, screen size, quality and resolution change the viewing experience. Hanging an exhibition for Tiffany Chung, an artist of worldwide fame, led to near breakdown on all sides. Tiffany’s multichannel video art requires sophisticated technology. ‘We don’t have the infrastructure here in Vietnam’, says a disappointed Quynh, ‘in future we will have to hire specialist people and bring in certain equipment.’

Technology is not the only obstacle. Try visiting the printing press because the looming deadline for a catalogue is not met, and leave at 3am covered in ink. ‘Always in Vietnam we have lots of production issues. Everything just takes time’, the gallery owner reveals. She employs a highly skilled carpenter to frame the artworks, but it has been known to happen that a picture is framed the wrong way up just before another deadline. Art, serious art, must be of the best quality. ‘We don’t have archival materials in Vietnam, so we have to bring them over from the United States or elsewhere’, Quynh notes, somehow with no exasperation in her voice.

Despite all this, ‘we’ve never had a meltdown’, she smiles. ‘The key to our success is the relationship we have with our artists.’ Passion for art is Galerie Quynh’s driving force. ‘I don’t have an MBA. I come from an art history, theoretical background’, which the artists respect. Instead of giving guidelines on how artists can make their work more sellable, Quynh critiques their work (very bluntly, she admits) and motivates them to push their ideas further, ‘I really care about them as professional artists.’

In turn, the artists stood by Galerie Quynh, even during the low points. International sources have commented that galleries are wary to taking on Vietnamese artists, because they sell their art behind the gallery’s back, after the gallery has invested heavily in promoting them. Quynh is rightly proud to say that her gallery has only lost 2 artists in all of these years. ‘We’ve worked with 17 artists on different projects.’ The younger generation artists have built strong careers thanks to that partnership.

Not that the gallery accepts any artist that knocks on the door. ‘A lot of artists have come to me and I’ve declined them.’ Quynh explains that art has to resonate with her. As a curator, her career depends on making choices she can defend with heart and soul. ‘I do feel that we are the leading gallery in the nation. We have solid programming. We have vision.’

The aim is not just to sell, but to make contemporary art from Vietnam more visible to the general public. Galerie Quynh has endorsed events and artists talks, and worked with organizations such as A little blah blah, Wonderful District, San Art, Zero Station and Dia Projects. International collaborations with various museums and artistic projects are significant. The gallery supported a fundraising event for Japan’s Red Cross, following the 2011 tsunami. From 2010 to 2012 Galerie Quynh was the first and only gallery from Vietnam invited to participate in the prestigious Art Hong Kong fair.

Galerie Quynh expanded in 2013 now has two exceptional art spaces in HCMC. Future world domination on the scale of Gagosian? Unlikely, given that Vietnam is still far from being a global art centre. But for that precise reason, because art experts from all corners are looking this way to see what they have missed, Quynh is networking more vigorously, ‘we need to start a dialogue with museums.’

Not only that. More challenges are in the making. In the courtyard of the Fine Arts museum, a new space has just been renovated. Sao La, Galerie Quynh’s newest initiative, is not going to be a commercial space. There are plans for something a bit more experimental. Educational programs and opportunities for some of the emerging artists who may feel somewhat intimidated by the other local art establishments, with their shows planned at least a year in advance. One thing seems certain, failure will not be a deterrent to make it work. ‘I’m really excited about our future’, glows Quynh.

What the Artists Say

Any artist that titles his work Square Eggs and Things Under Shells is going to either fail instantly or ooze enough creativity for at least two lifetimes. Hoang Duong Cam, one of Vietnam’s most playful artists, began his career in Hanoi, where ‘square eggs’ was projected at the Goethe Institute in 2001. Ten years later, in Galerie Quynh, which represents him since he moved to Saigon, Cam hung his favourite show to date.  Ideal Fall, 2011, was a big challenge for him and the gallery. Preparation took nearly 3 years of labour. The work included activities such as throwing sculptures off rooftops and shredding worker’s uniforms to make a hanging upside down monument.

Drawings of bandaged heads, fat cats, dead birds and evil sheep could mislead you into thinking that Stephen King has taken up art. Sandrine Llouquet’s works are disquieting renderings of human turmoil, with characters from childhood nightmares. Surprisingly captivating, though, because of the freshness of the line and watercolour strokes. Sandrine has worked with Galerie Quynh since moving to Vietnam in 2005. She has been very active with collaborative projects that have shaken up HCMC’s sleepy art world. She occasionally works as a VJ.

Galerie Quynh has two spaces: 65 De Tham, and the third floor of 151/3 Dong Khoi, both in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Text and photos by Cristina Nualart