Quynh Pham On Two Decades of Galerie Quynh and Vietnam’s Evolving Art Scene

Vietnam is not yet a global art destination, but the country’s art scene is vibrant and rapidly evolving. Galerie Quynh, in particular, has been instrumental in fostering, supporting and shaping a local ecosystem around contemporary art. Observer recently spoke with co-founder and director Quynh Pham to explore how its trajectory has both intersected with and, in many ways, propelled the development of Vietnam’s contemporary art landscape. Many of the country’s most established and critically recognized artists had their first gallery exhibitions at Galerie Quynh, at a time when no market existed for their work. Today, the gallery continues that legacy by participating in international fairs and championing Vietnamese art on the global stage.

Pham grew up in the United States after her parents fled Vietnam following the war, when she was still a child. She returned to Vietnam as an adult, after a formative first visit, leaving behind a promising museum career at the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla, San Diego. It was a bold and radical shift—one that would go on to shape not only her own path but also the trajectory of many artists in her ancestral homeland. “People thought I was crazy, because I quit my job in this beautiful museum that overlooks the Pacific Ocean,” Pham tells Observer. “I didn’t have any money. I had to sell my car to buy my ticket to Vietnam.” In the late 1990s, there was virtually no available information about art in Vietnam. Determined to understand the art scene in the country she came from, she decided to go and do the research herself. “I didn’t even speak Vietnamese and had no connections at all, but I thought a good place to start was the Fine Art Association. I met amazing artists, and I was so inspired by their work, so I stayed.”

At the time, there were very few active spaces for contemporary art and a complete lack of public institutions or government support, which is still one of the biggest challenges today. “There were galleries, but these galleries were more like commercial shops,” she says, adding that artists lacked the infrastructure—financial, legal and professional—needed to gain footing in the international art world. Still, for Pham, it was never about importing a Western model into Vietnam. “It was always about filling in gaps and listening to what the community needed at that specific moment in time,” she emphasizes. “Even now that the gallery is 21 years old, I still have my ear close to the ground, and I’m still constantly adapting and changing, pivoting based on what the community needs.”

First conceived as a non-profit educational resource to document and archive the Vietnamese contemporary art scene, Galerie Quynh quickly evolved into a hybrid gallery/museum—a commercial enterprise that curates exhibitions and creates a market for its artists as well as a much-needed resource for Vietnam’s young art ecosystem, educating the public and building its audience through extensive programming.

Trained as an art historian, Pham began by writing about Vietnamese art for local journals, but quickly recognized that more was needed to truly support and elevate the country’s artistic talent. In late 2000, she started organizing pop-up exhibitions at the Ho Chi Minh City government exhibition house on Lê Thánh Tôn, laying the groundwork for what would become a permanent space. Galerie Quynh officially opened in December 2003, co-founded with British artist Robert Cianchi.

Even after more than two decades, the country’s cultural ecosystem remains remarkably young. There are still no professional framing or art handling services—most of the gallery’s operations are managed in-house. The few museums presenting Vietnamese artistic heritage often lack conservation practices, and the country continues to face a shortage of art critics, writers and trained professionals in the field. Within this context, Galerie Quynh has been instrumental in nurturing and educating an emerging generation of art practitioners. Today, there is undeniably more knowledge and awareness, but that shift is the result of two decades of sustained effort. “I’ve built an audience, and I’ve built collectorship for these artists,” she says, describing how the gallery now collaborates with international collectors and institutions and participates in global art fairs to cultivate a broader audience for Vietnamese art.

At the same time, the gallery is cultivating a new base of local art collectors, buoyed by growing interest among young Vietnamese professionals who are increasingly eager to engage with contemporary art. Pham is preparing to launch a young collectors circle to meet this demand. “Many of these Vietnamese professionals are highly educated and often studied abroad,” she explains. “They came back to Vietnam and built startups or other successful businesses, and they now definitely want to learn more about contemporary art, which is what really resonates with their generation.”

Unlike the Philippines or South Korea, Vietnam lacks an older generation of wealthy collectors—decades of war and upheaval meant survival took precedence over collecting. Those older individuals who now buy art tend to focus on modern Vietnamese works, often through auctions where pieces fetch millions of dollars. “They’re buying these works to bring them back to Vietnam to value and preserve Vietnamese heritage and culture,” Pham says. Still, she is quick to point out the contradiction: that support rarely extends to living artists. “It’s very limited and hypocritical, as they do not support the art of their time, which will represent the zeitgeist of the country’s culture.” Her focus, therefore, remains on building a new generation of collectors who recognize that the artists they back today will define tomorrow’s history.

Vietnam is evolving fast. A dynamic economy is gaining momentum, drawing international companies and individuals relocating from other regional hubs. The U.S. embargo ended in 1994, and market reforms began under Đổi Mới in 1986, yet economic gains were not immediately matched by social or political change; culture remains low on the government agenda. National collections still prioritize historical art, with little public support for contemporary work, though Pham has observed a recent shift. “In the last five years, more private initiatives and patrons have begun stepping in to fill this gap,” including new private museums.

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International attention has intensified. “Most of the art I sell gets sent out of this country. It doesn’t stay in Vietnam,” Pham says. “So many people are interested now in this nation, particularly in the cultural sector. Major museums like MoMA, the Guggenheim and Tate are sending curatorial teams to Vietnam to really research the Vietnamese art scene.” For the gallery’s anniversary, seven MoMA curators visited as part of their ongoing research efforts.

Curated by Thái Hà—one of Vietnam’s most dynamic young curators and a former gallery alumna—the anniversary exhibition, “21 YEARS OF GALERIE QUYNH,” testifies to the country’s vibrant and varied contemporary production, shaped both in spite of and in response to its complex socio-political landscape. Featuring sixteen artists from the gallery’s roster and past collaborators, the show reflects on two decades of Vietnamese history as seen through practices nurtured by the gallery’s platform. As the accompanying catalogue notes, the presentation offers a wide-ranging view of how artists have translated life’s material and emotional realities in a socialist-oriented market economy—post-Đổi Mới, post-embargo, yet not fully post-socialist

The works on view fall on a spectrum, from a previous generation of pioneering abstract artists—working in a genre long unrecognized by the state and championed early by the gallery—to a new wave of artists in their twenties engaging with global culture and new media. As Pham notes, a persistent challenge remains the gap in conceptual training in Vietnamese art schools, where education continues to emphasize technical skills over critical thinking. “Personally, in all my years in Vietnam, I feel that the best artists I found were actually either self-taught or did not come from the art universities. Most importantly, they engage with the international community, too: they have access to the internet, they’re reading and have a lot of exchanges with international colleagues.”

A striking example is Sue Hajdu’s installation MAGMA | we’re not counting sheep: a room visible from the street, entirely draped in sensuous velvet and bathed in red light, evoking both the visceral interior of a body and the sacred atmosphere of a mystical temple. Sequined pendants and mirror balls hang from the ceiling, transforming the space into a dazzling, magical apparition. The installation activates every night for twenty-one nights, from 7 p.m. to midnight, turning the gallery outward toward the city. Originally installed and performed in 2006 and restaged for this exhibition, the work questions whether “the advent of markets and consumerism in Vietnam [and the modern] social project of defining the self through consumption” is any less ideological than the centrally planned socialism that preceded it.

At the same time, one of Pham’s central goals is to support artists who challenge prevailing definitions of “Vietnamese-ness,” “art” and “Vietnamese art.” Contemporary artistic production in Vietnam is strikingly multifaceted and not confined to the politically charged narratives one might expect from a country shaped by such a turbulent past. While some artists do reflect on history, identity, spirituality and cultural memory, others engage with global issues and aesthetics, expanding the discourse far beyond national boundaries. “In the current exhibition, we have sixteen artists, with the youngest born in 1996. They grew up when Vietnam was prospering and didn’t have the same struggles as their parents,” Pham says. “This younger generation often was trained abroad and makes art that maybe is rooted in Vietnam, but also resonates globally.”

During our hour-long conversation, Pham demonstrates an unwavering commitment to nurturing Vietnam’s art scene and bringing it the global attention and recognition it deserves. Yet she is candid about the work still ahead. “Even after more than two decades, we’re still building that ecosystem, but we need more people to help build it, so I’m encouraging the artists to come back and build together,” she says. “My organization, along with two or three others, cannot lift this whole country of 100 million people alone.”

Pham is currently urging officials to follow the lead of neighboring countries that are investing in culture not only as a draw for tourism but as a catalyst for broader economic and societal development. “It’s time to get the government involved and to see what culture can do for this country,” she explains. Her goal is to push for the creation of a dedicated creative district. “There’s no cultural district even in a fast-growing capital like Hanoi. Today, every single country has these cultural areas, and the government has so many incredible properties. I think it’s very important to have this Creative District where we lift up the whole country, highlighting the richness of Vietnamese culture.” The proposal is closely tied to the gallery’s survival; it’s once again facing the threat of displacement, yet another casualty of unrelenting gentrification.

But despite near-constant challenges, Galerie Quynh has endured where others have not. While many galleries have come and gone, it has survived this long, and Pham intends for it to continue. “The fact that we’re still here years later tells you something. Not only are we fighters who know how to survive, but also that the work we do is valuable,” she reflects. For someone like Pham, who left Vietnam as a refugee, returning to rebuild the country’s cultural landscape is deeply meaningful. “It feels bigger than me. It’s not about ego or money. What drives me is the impact of what I’m building here. It’s something that touches people. The fight is hard—it’s a struggle every day, in so many different ways—but it’s worth having.”

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