Shanghai Pujiang Southeast Asia Culture and Art Exchange Center President Zhang Zhi Yong Celebrates Boi Tran’s Solo Exhibition: Le Rêve Qui Veille
In October 2017, Mr Zhang Zhi Yong, President of the Shanghai Pujiang Southeast Asia Culture and Art Exchange Center, and Mrs Zhang Jing came to Boi Tran Garden to celebrate Boi Tran’s solo exhibition Le Rêve Qui Veille (The Watchful Dream). Their visit reflected a larger conversation between Hue, Shanghai, and the growing international regard for Vietnamese art.
Mr Zhang Zhi Yong arrived at Boi Tran Garden in October 2017 with the attentive air of a man accustomed to looking closely. Beside him was Mrs Zhang Jing. They had come to Hue for an occasion both personal and public: the celebration of Boi Tran’s sixtieth year and the opening of her solo exhibition Le Rêve Qui Veille (The Watchful Dream, Vừa Mơ Vừa Mở Mắt) on 26 October 2017.
Such visits have long belonged to the natural life of Boi Tran Garden. More than a residence, more than an exhibition venue, it has become a cultivated house where painting, scholarship, memory, cuisine, conversation and friendship meet in living form. Guests do not merely visit a place; they enter an atmosphere shaped over decades.
Mr Zhang Zhi Yong, President of the Shanghai Pujiang Southeast Asia Culture and Art Exchange Center, was no ordinary visitor. As collector, researcher and advocate, he had already devoted sustained attention to Vietnamese art. His collection includes works by Le Pho, Mai Trung Thu, Nguyen Trung, Boi Tran and others whose careers mark essential chapters of twentieth-century Vietnamese painting.
His presence in Hue therefore carried meaning beyond courtesy. It suggested recognition: that serious collectors abroad were looking to Vietnam not episodically, but with depth, patience and study.
For Boi Tran, the title Le Rêve Qui Veille held its own quiet declaration. A dream that remains awake. Imagination without escape. Inner life disciplined by consciousness. The phrase describes not only an exhibition, but an artistic temperament formed through years of work, solitude and fidelity to one’s own language.
To celebrate that exhibition within Boi Tran Garden was especially fitting. The house itself has always resembled such a dream: lyrical, watchful, intimate, awake to beauty.
The wider significance of Mr Zhang’s engagement would become even clearer in later years. From 1 to 6 November 2021, Shanghai hosted the international exhibition Bringing The World Together – Quintessence Sharing, organized with the cooperation of the China Foreign Relations Association and related institutions. Held at Magnolia Plaza, the tallest commercial building in Puxi, the exhibition brought important artworks into the daily movement of the city rather than confining them to closed specialist spaces.
Forty-six works by eighteen artists from countries and regions connected to the Belt and Road initiative were shown, including Vietnam, Myanmar, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and South Africa. Among the Vietnamese masters represented were Le Pho, Mai Trung Thu and Nguyen Trung. Lê Phổ’s Flower Arrangement received particular distinction.
At the International Art Forum on the opening day, Mr Zhang introduced Southeast Asian art before government leaders, artists, collectors and invited guests. He spoke with special attention to the styles, achievements and historical standing of Le Pho, Mai Trung Thu and Nguyen Trung, placing them within both Vietnamese and international art history.
His commitment was equally visible in publishing. On 26 December 2020, Nguyen Trung Works was launched in Shanghai on the artist’s eightieth year. The result of five years of research across Vietnam, Myanmar, China, France and the United States, the volume assembled 115 works created between 1970 and 2018, together with recollections from collectors and scholars, and a long interview on the artist’s life and practice.
As the first substantial book in China dedicated systematically to Nguyen Trung, it represented an important moment in the international study of Vietnamese modern art.
Seen through this larger lens, the 2017 visit to Boi Tran Garden becomes more than a social memory. It belongs to a chain of serious cultural exchanges: a collector from Shanghai, an artist in Hue, later exhibitions abroad, publications, conversations, friendships, and the slow widening of attention toward Vietnam.
Boi Tran Garden has always understood that art travels not only through markets or museums. It also travels through trust, hospitality, private dialogue, and houses where culture is lived rather than staged.
Mr Zhang Zhi Yong and Mrs Zhang Jing came to celebrate The Watchful Dream. They also affirmed, perhaps without needing to say so, that Hue remained part of the wider map of art.
His commitment was equally visible in publishing. On 26 December 2020, Nguyen Trung Works was launched in Shanghai on the artist’s eightieth year. The result of five years of research across Vietnam, Myanmar, China, France and the United States, the volume assembled 115 works created between 1970 and 2018, together with recollections from collectors and scholars, and a long interview on the artist’s life and practice.
As the first substantial book in China dedicated systematically to Nguyen Trung, it represented an important moment in the international study of Vietnamese modern art.
Seen through this larger lens, the 2017 visit to Boi Tran Garden becomes more than a social memory. It belongs to a chain of serious cultural exchanges: a collector from Shanghai, an artist in Hue, later exhibitions abroad, publications, conversations, friendships, and the slow widening of attention toward Vietnam.
Boi Tran Garden has always understood that art travels not only through markets or museums. It also travels through trust, hospitality, private dialogue, and houses where culture is lived rather than staged.
Mr Zhang Zhi Yong and Mrs Zhang Jing came to celebrate The Watchful Dream. They also affirmed, perhaps without needing to say so, that Hue remained part of the wider map of art.