A golden Scottish Fold is behind one of Hanoi's most talked-about art shows this season. 'Chats', an exhibition at the Việt Nam Museum of Fine Arts, gathers more than 50 acrylic-on-canvas paintings of cats by artist Phan Hiền Nhân, all made since 2022 and all borrowed from a single private collection.
The title is a deliberate multilingual pun. In French, 'chats' simply means cats; in English, it means conversation; and in Vietnamese, says Nhân, it can be read as a version of 'chất' (essence) or 'chát', a word with a bold, lingering aftertaste. He says all three meanings meet in the work. Nhân once lived and worked in France, and his paintings lean contemporary rather than realist — bold, expressive colour used to capture mood instead of likeness.
His muse is his own pet. Years of watching it rest, wait, glance and stretch taught him that feline postures map neatly onto human ones. A curled-up cat becomes serenity; a head turned sharply becomes alertness or playfulness; a body stretched full-length becomes surrender. Nhân's point is that these are human states too — the urge to withdraw, to be curious, to rush, to do nothing at all — and the cat on canvas becomes a mirror for feelings we struggle to name.
The other half of the story belongs to collector Đỗ Vũ Anh, a surgeon who assembled every piece in the show. Working in Paris in 2018, he filled his free hours in museums, galleries and flea markets, and collecting grew from there. He sees a kinship between surgery and painting — anatomy, he says, is about structure, proportion and precision, and his love of art shapes how he approaches each operation. Artist and collector, scalpel and brush, found common ground in observation and structure, and this exhibition is the result.
For travellers in Hanoi, this is an easy, rewarding detour. The show sits on the museum's second floor at 66 Nguyễn Thái Học Street, in the city's French Quarter near the Temple of Literature and the Imperial Citadel — you can fold it into a day of culture without going far. It runs until October 15, so there's a decent window, but don't assume it will be extended: it's a single-floor temporary show built around one private collection, likely never to be assembled in public again.
Even if cats aren't your thing, the exhibition doubles as an introduction to Vietnam's contemporary art scene, which is having a moment — collectors at home are increasingly opening their holdings to the public, and admission to the museum itself is modest. If you're visiting with kids or non-art friends, the subject is friendly and accessible, and the colour work photographs well. Go in the morning before tour groups arrive, then walk a few blocks for phở or egg coffee and call it a very good Hanoi afternoon.
