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Draft:Nguyen Art Foundation

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Nguyen Art Foundation (NAF), founded in 2018 by Quynh Nguyen, was established with the goal of supporting Vietnam's artistic community..[1] Acting as a branching support structure, NAF aims to expand the possibilities for contemporary art in Vietnam by facilitating artistic and intellectual exchange through its collection, exhibitions, educational programs, public initiatives, and development projects.[2]

The foundation's collection focuses on artists with connections to Vietnam, emphasizing practice, experimentation, and critical thought rather than limiting identity to nationality. As a result, the collection includes works by both Vietnamese and international artists, expanding the definition of "art from Vietnam."[1]

Education is a key component of NAF's mission. In collaboration with EMASI Schools and Renaissance International School Saigon, the foundation integrates its collection and organizes thematic exhibitions within school campuses and art spaces. These initiatives provide students and the wider public with opportunities to engage with contemporary artistic practices from Vietnam and abroad.[3]

Quynh Nguyen, reflecting on her journey, explains that her passion for collecting art began in 1995 and gradually evolved into a commitment with Vietnamese art community. After spending time in Houston, Texas, and founding the International Modern Art Gallery to showcase Vietnamese artists in the U.S., she was inspired by the educational and public engagement strategies of various private collections and museums. This experience motivated her to create a similar platform in Vietnam, leading to the founding of NAF in 2018.[4]

From 2018 to 2021, the foundation was managed by MoT+++. Since 2022, Bill Nguyen, Nhat Q. Vo, and Thái Hà have joined the management team.

NAF TEAM

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Quynh Nguyen

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Quynh Nguyen is the founder of the Nguyen Art Foundation (NAF) and a prominent businesswoman, as well as a longstanding supporter of the arts and education. Since 1995, she has served as the founder and CEO of Viet Huong JSC, a leading flavor and fragrance company in Vietnam. In 2014, she established the International Modern Art Gallery (IMA Gallery) in Houston, Texas, where she also held the role of director. After returning to Vietnam, she co-founded the EMASI Schools and Renaissance International School Saigon, both of which integrate the arts into their educational missions and curricula. In 2018, she founded Nguyen Art Foundation, with the aim of providing platforms and opportunities for artists and art professionals.

Bill Nguyen

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Bill Nguyen (b. 1988, Vietnam) is the Director of Nguyen Art Foundation. He is an artist and curator dedicated to exploring locally-driven approaches to curatorial practice and artistic expression. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Nottingham Trent University in the UK before returning to Vietnam, where he has become an active figure in the country's cultural scene. His work spans various artistic mediums, including performance art, creative writing, and curatorial projects, focusing on themes such as intimacy, foreignness, cultural continuity, and historical narratives.[5]

Nguyen has collaborated with artist-run spaces such as Nha San Collective and Hanoi Doclab and has founded alternative platforms for curatorial experimentation, including Manzi Art Space and Curatorial Xa Quan. He was also a member of the curatorial team at The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre. In January 2022, he became the Director of Nguyen Art Foundation.[6]

Nguyen is an alumnus of the 8th Berlin Biennale Young Curators Workshop and the CuratorsLAB initiated by the Goethe-Institut Southeast Asia. His notable curatorial projects include No more, not yet (2023), Artist Excellence Award (2021–ongoing), We’re in this, together – a Pollination project (2018), Spirit of Friendship (2017), and 0395A.ĐC (2017).[6]

Nhat Q. Vo

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Nhat Q. Vo (born 1991, Vietnam) is the Manager of Nguyen Art Foundation. Nhat is a cultural worker and multidisciplinary designer based in Ho Chi Minh City. He earned a Bachelor of Architecture from California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2015. With a focus on creating education playgrounds and cultural development in Vietnam, Nhat’s work range from event and space organization to coordination, production, and curation. He frequently collaborates with artists and organizations both in Vietnam and across Southeast Asia.[7]

In 2018, Nhat participated in the Bangkok Biennale as a collaborating architect with Art Labor for the project Radicle Room.[8][9] In 2020, with support from the Goethe-Institut Ho Chi Minh City and Sàn Art, he co-published Masked Force with writer Nguyen Hoang Quyen, accompanying a retrospective of photographer Vo An Khanh’s work.[10][11] More recently, Nhat co-curated the exhibition Rhyming Gestures with Thái Hà.[12]

Thái Hà

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Thái Hà is the Curator of Nguyen Art Foundation. She is a curator and translator whose practice centers speculation, dreaming, play, and improvisation.[13] Hà participated in the 12th Berlin Biennale Curator's Workshop, led by Reem Shadid. Between 2020-2021, Hà received a grant to develop CáRô, an arts education workshop for students in Saigon. In 2018, she co-founded Indigo Magazine, a London-based platform aimed at amplifying new voices from Southeast Asian arts, though it is now dormant. Her translation work has been featured in publications by institutions such as Tate St Ives, Carnegie Museum of Art, Asian Art Biennial, ArtReview, and NUSASONIC.[14]

In 2023, Hà collaborated with Ném Space to organize Films for Liberation: Palestine Forever, a month-long film program that acts along the unwavering solidarity for Palestine, using cinema as a tool for mobilization and education. The program was held in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Kobe, and Tokyo.[13]

Collection

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Main collection

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Nguyen Art Foundation's Main Collection serves as a carrier of memory and historical consciousness, featuring works from various eras of Vietnamese art. The collection ranges from wartime sketches and drawings, pioneering works from the 1990s and 2000s, to experimental and critical pieces by young and emerging practitioners. Through this collection, the foundation preserves Vietnam's history as expressed through visual art, while actively seeks and celebrates artworks that evoke historical and contemporary significance[15], generate a lasting impact, and embody a vision for the future.[16]

Nguyen Art Foundation has supported and commissioned various artworks and art projects through its special commissions, financial aid and expertise assistance from the Foundation’s Education arm[3], as well as Development Projects.

Exhibitions and Display

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Nguyen Art Foundation's mission centers on two key objectives: fostering artistic expressions that address the complexities of the ever-changing world; and supporting local talent to enhance the potential and sustainability of the Vietnamese art community. To achieve these goals, the foundation's curatorial team adopts an annual thematic approach to exhibitions, addressing pressing and relevant issues both within and beyond Vietnam. The foundation engages with artists from its collection as well as external artists, often collaborating with guest curators and art organizations to provide equal opportunities for exhibition and platform sharing.

The foundation's annual exhibition themes are as follows:

  • 2021-2022: Past & Future[17]
  • 2023: Community & Compassion[18]
  • 2024: Innovation & Dedication[19]
  • 2025: (Generational) Gaps & (Familial) Ties

Nguyen Art Foundation has also organized and supported notable exhibitions and display as follows: People, Victory and Life after the War, 2021[17]; Illuminated Curiosities, 2022[15]; No more, not yet, 2023[20]; White Noise, 2023; Rhyming Gestures, 2023; In Stranger Lands: Cocoa’s Journeys To Asia, 2024[21]; The Oddball, The Rebel, and The Maverick, 2024[22]; Nguyen Art Foundation x Khai Sang Corporation, 2024; In absence, presence, 2024[19][23].

Education & Public Program

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Education is the core ethos of Nguyen Art Foundation. As NAF’s art spaces are located inside both EMASI NAM Long and EMASI Van Phuc campuses, art intertwines education significantly in every learning experience, enriching young students’ enthusiasm for art. Alongside this mission, Nguyen Art Foundation extends art educational opportunities for public audiences of all ages through various Education and Public Programs such as lectures, workshops, and panel discussions. Each program is well-designed and collaborated with cross-cultural artists, researchers, educators, and organizations, prioritizing the critical analysis of interdisciplinary knowledge in art[24]. Education and Public Programs also emphasize its historical importance and societal impact on our lives in the 21st century.

The past Education and Public Programs are as follows:

  • 2024:
    • “An exercise in shaping memories” with Bạn Đời Của Vạn Vật
    • “Film screening and artist talk with Nguyen Trinh Thi: Sound-less” with Fulbright University Vietnam[25]
    • “An exercise in role reversal”
    • “An exercise in time, remembrance, and touch”
    • “Communal Houses in Cities – Landscapes of Constant Transformation” with Dự án Đo Đạc and Tản Mạn Kiến Trúc – 散漫建築
    • “Lunch time screenings: No fighting at the dinner table”
    • “Asian cocoa & socially engaged art practices”
    • “Chocolate experience workshop”
    • “Screening and discussion: LEGACIES” with Fulbright University Vietnam and Á Space[24]
  • 2023:
    • “Myths of the non-human” with gấu thiên thể
    • “A lacquer-inspired clay-making workshop” with Mai Anh Le
    • “Time: The Donut of the Heart” talk with Vy Trinh
    • Curatorial tour: “ White Noise”
    • “Earth, Earthly, Human” talk with Huynh Ngoc Trang[26]
    • A visit from Fulbright University Vietnam to “Rhyming Gestures”
    • Curatorial tour: “Rhyming Gestures”
    • “EMASI students’ postcards for the Tonlé Sap community”
    • “Worker, farmer, solider, repeat? Contemporary art after socialist realism” with Phoebe Scott[27]
    • “A world-building workshop for primary students” with Bach Tung
    • “Sentimental Materials” with gấu thiên thể[28]
    • “Performance An Interview with Little Peanut and the multimedia storytelling workshop” with Mắt Trần Ensemble
    • “Home- / Host- Town” with Ripp Nguyen and Nhat Huynh-Vu
    • A visit from Fulbright University Vietnam to “No more, not yet”
    • “Discussion within the exhibition No more, not yet” with Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai, Vu Minh Hoang, and Linh Le
    • Curatorial tour: “No more, not yet”
  • 2021:
    • “Stars afar Closer: fireflies” with Thao Nguyen Phan
    • “Contemporary Art’s Histories in Vietnam: A Southern Perspective” with Pamela Nguyen Corey
    • Students at EMASI interpret themes from the “People, Victory and life After the War”
    • Students from Renaissance International School Saigon visit artist Hoang Nam Viet’s studio
    • A visit from Tinkle Painting Arts Center to “People, Victory and Life after the War”
    • A visit from Fulbright University Vietnam to “People, Victory and Life after the War”

Development Projects

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The Development Projects initiated by Nguyen Art Foundation aim to support the local community, artists, and cultural workers in promoting the development of contemporary art in Vietnam. Taking a practical view of the deficiencies in Vietnamese art infrastructure and limitations in art education access, Development Projects strives to provide a wide range of interdisciplinary research, multifaceted perspectives on history and theory, as well as critical thinking. This opens up new approaches and enhances the existing development potential in contemporary art in Vietnam.

Studio Visit

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With Studio Visits, Nguyen Art Foundation not only invites audiences to explore the working spaces of artists, creators, and founders but also listen to the creative stories revolving around artworks and the operations of artistic organizations. These visits significantly contribute diverse narratives to the voice of contemporary art in Vietnam, as well as continue to provide additional research resources and engage the public closer to art.

The Studio Visits by Nguyen Art Foundation are as follows:

Publication

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Nguyen Art Foundation has published various art and cultural publications to serve the purposes of reading, writing, and knowledge production. Accompanied by experts and writers both locally and internationally in diverse range of interests, these publications focus on local art issues as well as explore their potentials to foster these factors into the international exchange. Publications published by Nguyen Art Foundation include White Noise: Three Parables + 1[34], 2024; A floating community and sentimental materials, 2023; An assignment on Memory – The art of Oanh Phi Phi, 2023; An assignment on Memory – The art of Bui Cong Khanh, 2023; An assignment on Memory – The art of Nguyen Van Cuong, 2023; An assignment on Memory – The art of Le Thua Tien, 2023; An assignment on Memory – The art of Ha Manh Thang, 2023; An assignment on Memory – The art of Le Quy Tong, 2023; An assignment on Memory – The art of Dinh Q. Le, 2023; An assignment on Memory – The art of Nguyen Minh Thanh, 2023; Origins: An Immigrant’s Journey in America, 2020.[35]

Community Building

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Since 2018, Nguyen Art Foundation has been pioneering activities to build, connect, and support a community of young artists and art practitioners. From 2018 to 2021, Nguyen Art Foundation collaborated with A. Farm Residency — co-founded by Sàn Art and MoT+++ — an art residency that fosters interdisciplinary art experiences within the community[36]. In 2024, Nguyen Art Foundation launched PORTFOLIO+ by Nhat Q. Vo, a program tailored for art practitioners and young artists to share and develop their portfolios through critical feedback from the NAF team and invited experts, while also gaining access to information on relevant programs or developmental opportunities aligned with their career aspirations.

Supported by NAF

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Nguyen Art Foundation actively contributes to shaping an engaged and sustainable contemporary art community through collaborative sponsorship and support of art organizations and events in Vietnam. Some events supported by Nguyen Art Foundation include "No Cai Bum Art Week – Da Nang & Hoi An" (2024)[37]; "The First Conference on Curating in Vietnam" (2024)[38]; "No Cai Bum Art Week – Da Lat Dreamy" (2022)[39]; "Reed Island (Red River) Talk Series, IN:ACT 2022" (2022)[40]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Nguyen Art Foundation, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam".
  2. ^ "Hòa vào thế giới thực ảo tại triển lãm Trong hư vô, cái hiện hữu".
  3. ^ a b "EMASI đưa giáo dục sóng đôi nghệ thuật".
  4. ^ "Trò chuyện Art Republik: Quỳnh Nguyễn – Nhà sáng lập the Nguyen Art Foundation".
  5. ^ "The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre".
  6. ^ a b "Curator Conversations: Bill Nguyen".
  7. ^ "Mekong Cultural Hub".
  8. ^ "Artist book no.02: Jrai Dew Art Labor".
  9. ^ "Jrai Dew: a radicle room".
  10. ^ "Masked Force".
  11. ^ "Masked Force".
  12. ^ "MASKED FORCE solo exhibition by VÕ AN KHÁNH — organized by Sàn Art".
  13. ^ a b "Galerie Quynh Contemporary Art".
  14. ^ "Circa Art Magazine Thái Hà: Did you mishear me misspeak?".
  15. ^ a b "Group Exhibition 'Illuminated Curiosities' – the Nguyen Art Foundation".
  16. ^ "Start Them Young: Nguyen Art Foundation On Nurturing The Next Generation Of Artists And Collectors".
  17. ^ a b "コレクション展「People, Victory and Life after the War」- the Nguyen Art Foundation".
  18. ^ "[Hồ Chí Minh] 'No more, not yet' Exhibition Opening".
  19. ^ a b "Exhibition opening 'In absence, presence' @ EMASI Vạn Phúc".
  20. ^ "An Archive Unfolds: 'No more, not yet'".
  21. ^ "The Asian Cocoa Project".
  22. ^ "The Oddball, The Rebel, And The Maverick".
  23. ^ "Asia Now Paris Art Fair".
  24. ^ a b "Screening and discussion: LEGACIES".
  25. ^ "Sound-less: A film screening and artist talk with Nguyen Trinh Thi".
  26. ^ "Tục thờ cúng Ông Địa - Thần Tài qua góc nhìn của nhà nghiên cứu văn hóa".
  27. ^ "Entertainment and cultural events of the week (June 19-25/2023)".
  28. ^ "Sentimental Materials".
  29. ^ "Entertainment and cultural events of the week (October 17-23)".
  30. ^ "Talk by Professor Nora Taylor".
  31. ^ "Student Workshop with Art Curator".
  32. ^ "Phuong Linh at Special Projects, Nguyen Art Foundation".
  33. ^ "Studio Visit with Nguyễn Huy An by the Nguyen Art Foundation".
  34. ^ "SELECTED WRITINGS".
  35. ^ "Origins: An Immigrant's Journey in America (Paperback)".
  36. ^ "A.Farm International Residency Program".
  37. ^ "23-26.08.2024: Nổ Cái Bùm Festival (Đà Nẵng-Hội An), Workshop".
  38. ^ "THE FIRST CONFERENCE ON CURATING IN VIETNAM".
  39. ^ "Khai mạc Tuần lễ Nghệ thuật Nổ Cái Bùm lần 2 tại Đà Lạt".
  40. ^ "IN:ACT 2022".
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