Meeting Luneta Phan – Founder and artistic director of Lunet Art – is an opportunity for us to learn more about her passion in building a reliable art gallery for the market in Vietnam, reflecting in her style of choosing artworks, activities to support artists, connecting collectors and raising aethetic apprehension in our society via the Art Talk program.
Good morning, Ms Luneta Phan! What are the driving factors that lead you to founding Lunet Art Galerie?
When I was a child, I had the passion in drawing and was fascinated by the world of color and beauty. I wanted to lay everything down in my own way. I thought if I could, I would be an artist myself.
However, when I have to choose what to pursue as my academic goal, the spirit of the time turned me towards economics management. When I reached to the stage of financial stability, I return to art as if I returned to my own root as a collector. Difficulty accompanied me during years of experience in art and questions arised during the collecting process: is the work authentic? How to appraise an artwork? Is it commensurate with the cost and budget? And so on… Then, I came up with an idea: “Why don’t I open a gallery, put together a professional art curating organization?”
And so, Lunet Art was founded as a place where my love for art can be satisfied, and at the same time, contributing to the community a professional curatorial organization – a reliable setting for artists as well as collectors, giving them an open and equitable playing field.
“We are finishing refining a new exhibition hall to expand the space for artworks by artists and collectors.”
Moving into the arts sector as Lunet Art’s founder/Art director must have been an exciting self-study adventure!
I am teaching myself and researching art with the mindset of a college student (laughs), from painting, designing, filming, rendering to organizing events, exhibitions… In fact, not only in Vietnam but also Europe, to manage a showroom is not easy. I walked step by step, from things that never seemed to be suited for me such as lighting, rehearsal light and sounds, … Nobody taught us that in college, even in international schools. But when you have a bit of talent, your curiousity arises. For example, lighting in an exhibition is extremely important. The lightening is dependent on the brightness and color intensity of the picture or shapes.
My current job is an art curator, that is, a real practitioner, not waiting for anyone to grant me that position or go study at somewhere just for the recognition. All art-related activities within Lunet Art is relative to artists, collectors and the audience, and, the final decisive factor is the curator and Art director like me.
What is the most dominant principle in curating works and artists of Lunet Art?
One of Lunet Art’s curating principles is that when we meet an artist for the first time, we cannot judge right away. And when I first encountered an artwork, any comment was just superficial. In order to go deeply, oneself must thoroughly learn the content, the intrinsic vibe of the work; understand the author and their soul, from there to the full evaluation, from the inside out. It is really difficult, because the curator is not an ordinary art viewer, and is also different from art theorists or critics.
When curating, I must wonder what and whom I am curating for. For example, there are some collectors with a certain style of collecting need to be consulted about collections carrying their own DNA. If their style is academic, the curator must understand what the academic concept is, how to select and refine the works to produce a satisfactory collection. Like fashion stylists, they choose the right clothes for the wearers, that is the fashion curator. This is different from the work of a critic who uses only the history and developmental end to make an evaluation.
So, what style of works do Lunet Art choose?
We focus on academic art, mainly easel painting and sculptures. During the selection process, we set our bar at and from standard to high level, and, even beyond, to museum standard, which is the standard for artworks to be accepted to museum collection. But that doesn’t mean I would advise collectors to invest in those works because I need to care about their collection styles.
The fact that the bond between artists and their work is of paramount importance for a gallery like Lunet Art to function properly. So, what is your principle in selecting collaborative artists?
Regarding to Artists, in order to match the Lunet Art style, they must achieve the composing level of academic works, experienced in the art world, expressed through their own materials and paths. They have to change, because art is creativity. Once they found themselves in the field, they also had to improve it. Meanwhile, the work will raise the artist up and at the same time, their reputation will also push the value of the work up.
When academia is mentioned, it means that it comes to (self) honing and (self) training the artists technical has to be really good. Many artists around the world also trained themselves, Picasso is a typical example. His first and last style appears to be completely different, but it remains him as all changes revolve around a fixed spirit. And Van Gogh’s painting does not emphasize the dramatic change in techniques, but his creativity exudes a special soul. To make anyone who admires his paintings to vibrate, to feels like a new day has started.
“But I do not make the principles of selection become rigid, because I understand, there are many Vietnamese artists now developing at a very young age. They reach their peaks, thanks to different factors of talent and predestination. Lunet Art is ready to embrace everything, based on its core foundation.“
However, after all, we aim for the humanistic and historical value. Artists’ paintings develop around a spiritual that shapes their own styles that does not blend in with the crowd. Leonardo da Vinci is an example. His paintings are academic and reflect the Renaissance style, and museums are eager to archive his works because they are the marks of a culture, not to mention that they contain a lot of documents and researches of the author. Da Vinci’s works are like an “encyclopedia”, reserving the knowledge of that era.
How has Luneta Phan’s gallery development strategy changed since its inception?
Currently we have no intention of changing in the near future. According to its plan and development strategy, Lunet Art is an art organization operating under the model of a non-profit social enterprise.
We create a long series of programs that cannot be executed immediately, such as:
– Establishing Lunet Art Foundation with its events and programs: Art sponsorship for talented artists, artists who have made great contributions to Vietnamese Fine art … as a recognition from society and the community to them.
– Establishing an artist legal aid center to provide information and support for artists in registering copyright … the procedure takes a lot of time and not all artists have put their mind into it. This will help artists approaching the art market professionally, and at the same time they will pay more attention and understand the law to protect their own rights. On the other hand, this is also a way to protect the interests of collectors and art investors, so that they can access works in a safe and legal manner.
– We also build an experimental program like Art Talk – art chat, to raise social awareness about art as well as for artists, collectors and the community to better understand each other. Art Talk is a program to widely share with the community about art in general and fine arts from multi-dimensional perspectives in society. Besides, Lunet Art also hopes to contribute to raising social awareness about art, for example with the theme: “Why is the art expensive?” we approach different audiences, from different perspectives: art companions such as newspapers, curators, critics, galleries; another aspects from the artists’ points of view, to explain the formation in value of art pieces. In order to completely show the perspective of “Why is the art expensive”, we have invited collectors and economists to share their views.
As the owner of a gallery in Vietnam, how do you rate the contemporary gallery model in our country compared to ASEAN countries like Indonesia and Malaysia. What can we learn from them?
Gallery is an indispensable element in the settings of an art market system. The creation and professionalization of galleries are the inevitable law of the market. In Vietnam, the market is still incomplete: many galleries are ineffective, the collaboration between artists and collectors is not really professional… we are still developing, so we should not too hurry in making comparison.
Lunet Art alone cannot make a marketplace. But if our way of working is professional with professional galleries, the market will regulate itself, and artists no longer have to sell their paintings themselves, but an intermediary will support them.
Thank you miss Luneta for this fun and enjoyable conversation!
