Founded later than other museums in the city, the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum has quickly become an indispensable destination for locals and tourists at both home and abroad. The museum constantly innovates, renovates, and adds exhibition space to increase its attractiveness to lure more visitors.

The constant innovation and addition of exhibition spaces has attracted more visitors to the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum. Photo: DOAN HAO LUONG

Collecting many valuable artistic artifacts

In order to enrich and improve the quality of the works displayed at the museum, in recent times, the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum has focused on collecting artifacts, especially mobilising and calling on famous collectors and artists to donate artifacts of high artistic value and quality. Since the beginning of the year, the museum has received 48 works, artifacts and research materials donated by artisans, artists and collectors.

Through the live painting programme with the theme "Beauty of Da Nang in 2024", the museum has added 28 works of artistic value by participating artists to the museum's artifact fund. The museum has organised 11 thematic exhibitions to serve the public's need to enjoy culture and art, thereby contributing to the cultural diplomacy activities of the industry and the city, and creating a playground for artists to exchange and share creative experiences. Notable among them include "Duyen Xuan", "Nam Jam Street Art", "Da Nang Beauty", "Vietnamese Folk Paintings", and the painting competition and children's painting exhibition "Da Nang Summer Colours".

In the long-term exhibition work, the museum has renovated and displayed the collection of paintings by artist Le Ba Dang and put into service the public the space "Le Ba Dang Art Collection donated by Mr. and Mrs. Le Tat Luyen - Thuy Khue”.

Thanks to that, the museum has become a destination for many art lovers at home and abroad. Over the past 11 months, the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum has welcomed more than 25,560 visitors to visit and study fine arts, including 5,913 international visitors and 19,647 domestic visitors. In 2024, the museum welcomed more than 28,000 visitors to visit, learn about and study fine arts.

As the person who donated many Vietnamese folk paintings to the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum, Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa, Director of the Ha Noi Ceramic Museum, said “The Da Nang Fine Arts Museum has arranged to display folk paintings very respectfully and annotated them very meticulously. This motivates me to donate more outstanding folk paintings from the three regions of the South, Central and North to the museum. If every museum can develop like the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum, the generations after us in a few decades will cherish the cultural heritage left by our ancestors.”

Reaching a wide audience

In parallel with the collection of artifacts, the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum also focuses on doing a good job of preventive and therapeutic preservation for artifacts, and at the same time, promoting communication to widely introduce valuable artifacts to the public at home and abroad. In particular, it regularly maintains the posting of information on social networking sites and websites about activities and events celebrating major national holidays and exhibitions or images of visitor services.

Moreover, the museum strengthens coordination with the Department of Education and Training of districts, towns, and schools to organize many educational activities for pupils to visit and study extracurricular activities. Since the beginning of the year, the museum has welcomed 77 groups with 5,486 children, pupils, and students from schools in the city.

Pham Ngo Truc My, a 8^th grader of the Trung Vuong Junior High School in Hai Chau District said that “The Da Nang Fine Arts Museum has a beautiful exhibition space. During the days of the series of activities to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of musician Phan Huynh Dieu's birth, thanks to visiting the art exhibition "Phan Huynh Dieu - The Bird Flying Back" at the museum, we learned more about the life of work and musical creativity of the talented musician from his hometown of Quang Nam - Da Nang”.

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Trinh, Deputy Director of the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum, although it has been in operation for less than 10 years, the museum has become an attraction for domestic and international visitors, and has received good reviews from visitors. On Google, there are about 987 4.4-star reviews. To achieve this, in recent times, the museum has constantly innovated, renovated, adjusted, and added exhibition spaces to increase attractiveness and meet the needs of visitors.

Along with that is the professionalisation of activities when applying information technology and digital technology to display and introduce to tourists. In particular, the organisation of many art display events, short-term exhibitions and experiential activities for people and tourists has reached many public audiences, especially children, women and young people. In the coming time, the city needs to invest in infrastructure in order to help the museum further improve its operational efficiency.

During the upcoming Lunar New Year 2025, the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum will coordinate with a group of five artists who are members of the Viet Nam Fine Arts Association to organise an exhibition with the theme "Spring Love" taking place from January 8 - 18, 2025.

In addition, the museum also works with the Union of Literature and Arts Associations of Da Nang to organise a children's painting exhibition with the theme "Spring and Zodiac" from January 22 - February 9, 2025. Furthermore, the museum plans for many art experience programmes such as decorating the space to welcome Tet, drawing Tet paintings, and printing folk paintings.

Reporting by DOAN HAO LUONG – Translating by M.DUNG