Most travellers visit Hanoi for the fantastic food. That’s why we went. After motorbikes, visitors to Vietnam’s capital find themselves dodging street food stalls and the footpaths are littered with locals perched on tiny stools tucking into something. Yet the Hanoi art scene is doing well to compete for attention with the city’s food scene. Here’s how to experience it.
In just one weekend when we were in the city last year there were exhibition openings at three different art galleries, where Hanoi’s creative crowd sipped cocktails and Vietnamese wine as they took in the art on the walls. On that weekend, there were also art-themed talks at arty bar-cum-café Tadioto and art space Manzi opened with a bang. Hanoi’s art scene is happening.
A Guide to the Hanoi Art Scene
Art in Vietnam has a long history dating to the 3rd millennia BC when stone tools were intricately decorated. Coinciding with the birth of the capital Thang Long (today’s Hanoi) and a boom in Imperial and Buddhist architecture, the 11th to the 14th centuries were notable for their artistic works including beautiful sculptures and paintings created for pagodas.
After a period in which the Vietnamese occupied their time fighting foreign invaders, the 15th to 18th centuries produced skilled artisans who created wooden carvings, ornate statuary, lacquer art, glazed pottery and ceramics, and paintings on paper.
However, it was the 19th to 20th centuries that marked a major transformation after French colonisers introduced European painting and Vietnamese artists began to work in oils as well as wood cuts, silk and lacquer to produce landscapes, portraits, and scenes from everyday life.
Hanoi’s superb Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, in a handsome former girl’s school dating to 1937, provides a fantastic introduction to Vietnam’s art history, from the earliest periods through to modern 20th century movements when Vietnamese art exploded with artists working in every style and medium available: realism, impressionism, expressionism, surrealism, and abstract art; drawings, oils, woodcuts, and lacquer.
Also on display are pieces from the most progressive period, the 1990s, when a group of contemporary artists labelled the ‘gang of five’ — Dang Xuan Hoa, Ha Tri Hieu, Tran Luan, Hong Viet Dung, and Pham Quang Vinh – grabbed the international art world’s attention. I didn’t visit the museum until the end of our three-month stay and I was regretting I hadn’t gone earlier.
For a firsthand perspective on the Hanoi art scene and the city’s art history from 1990, when Russian art lover Natasha Kraevskaia and her late husband artist Vu Dan Tan opened Hanoi’s first private gallery, drop into Salon Natasha.
Most days you’ll find the door open to the pink house at 30 Hang Bong Street in the Old Quarter, its walls decorated with the artist’s work, and the inimitable Natasha at her desk writing essays on Vietnamese art for international publications – and ready for a chat.
Spaces such as Tadioto and Manzi, which opened just over a year ago, also operate as café-bars and hold art talks, as well as film screenings, live music, and performances, and are fantastic places to meet artists and art lovers.
For a more organised introduction to the Hanoi art scene, with a focus on the contemporary art scene, book an art experience through Backyard Travel. We did our tour with Do Tuong Linh – described as Hanoi’s art ‘It girl’ by artist Bill Nguyen and one of three self-proclaimed ‘art activists’ (along with Giang Dang and Tram Vu) who opened Manzi.
During a day out with Linh, we visit the home of art patron and collector Nguyen Manh Duc known as Nha San Duc or the Stilted House, a site of art happenings shut down by authorities for a particularly radical performance.
We met his daughter Nguyen Phuong Linh, an emerging artist and curator, hanging a show at the Japan Foundation, and we visited the studio-home of influential artist Truong Tan, where he and artist Duoong Zoi showed us their work.
Some of the best places to get a taste of the Hanoi art scene and see contemporary Vietnamese art exhibitions are foreign cultural institutes like the Japan Foundation, French L’Espace and the German Goethe Institut (also home to experimental film centre Doc-Lab), and locally-owned galleries like Nguyen Art Gallery near the Museum, and Mai Gallery and Apricot Gallery on Hang Bong Street.
The night we went to Nguyen Art Gallery’s Colours of Nature exhibition opening, the whole of Hanoi seemed to have crammed into the gallery. Art lovers were posing for photos with artists Dang Hiep, Duy Hoa, Trinh Lien, Duy Tung, and Le Thuy as if they were a K-Pop boy band.
It was a sociable crowd, a who’s who of the Hanoi art scene. We met lots of local artists, art writers, academics, and art-loving tourists at the exhibition. And not once did the talk turn to food.
Where to Experience the Hanoi Art Scene
Hanoi’s Vietnam Fine Arts Museum
66 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, Ba Dinh
Open daily 8.30am-5pm
Nguyen Art Gallery
31 Van Mieu Street, Dong Da
Manzi
14 Phan Huy Ich, Truc Bach
++84 4 3716 3397
Backyard Travel Art Tour
Soak up the Hanoi art scene on a tour with a local art specialist to museums, galleries and artist ateliers
Hanoi Grapevine
Best source of information on the Hanoi art scene, art exhibitions and gallery openings
Pictured above: Artist Trinh Lien at Nguyen Art Gallery
Vietnam Visa on Arrival
Travelling to Vietnam? Click through to arrange your Vietnam Visa on Arrival through our Visa Partner, the most respected Vietnam Visa agent. Visa approval letters take just 2 business days, although urgent visas can be arranged in as little as 4 working hours and up to 1 working day. More visa information here.
You’re right – I think of food when I think of Hanoi. But thanks to this post I’ll think of art now too. I’ll have to check it out when we’re in Hanoi next year :-)
When I make it back to Southeast Asia after my Central American adventure, Vietnam is on the list to re-visit … this will be high on my agenda here!
You must! The thing is that artists in Hanoi, and Vietnam more generally, are so down to earth too and so open about sharing their work, and the galleries are so accessible.
Vietnam is wonderful! Missing it so much and can’t wait to get back. The art scene in HCMC is fantastic too – we’ll have a story on that soon also.
Hi – I’m looking to contact artist minh hiep nguyen as I would like to see more of his work – do you know how I could contact him. I know he was born in 1940 and graduated from the superior school of fine art in 1960 any contact information would be helpful – thanks
Hi – I suggest you contact Natasha as well as the galleries we mention in the story. There are links to them above. Best of luck!