Tuan Andrew Nguyen at Frieze New York

For the 2025 edition of Frieze New York at The Shed, James Cohan is pleased to present a solo booth of new work by Tuan Andrew Nguyen. The fair is open to the public from May 8 through May 11, with an invite-only preview on Wednesday, May 7.

Tuan Andrew Nguyen's sculptures at Frieze New York are made from fragments of unexploded ordnances (UXOs) recovered in the Quảng Trị region of central Vietnam, the site of the largest aerial bombardment in history. Working collaboratively with residents and demining organizations, Nguyen has created narrative video works and sculptural objects that reflect this scarred landscape. The artist transforms objects of war into spiritual objects of healing, shaped by his belief in the possibility of material memory and reincarnation.

Two central works in the booth, Outburst, 2025, a hanging mobile, and Tremor, 2025, a floor-based mobile, take compositional cues from Alexander Calder, juxtaposing elegant forms with the raw origins of their materials. These kinetic sculptures respond to air flow and sound vibrations, creating a naturally shifting play of abstract spatial relationships, suggesting a state of perpetual change. As these works oscillate and shimmer, they embody the principle of balance, both formally in their construction, and conceptually in terms of the karmic balance embedded within ideas of reincarnation. Nguyen worked with a sound healer who tuned each work so that once activated, they vibrate at a precisely calibrated healing frequency. Several of the sculptural works can be activated by a booth attendant, inviting the creation of a curative soundscape.

In the wall-based work Scars, 2025, the artist skillfully manipulates oxidation and patina to push his palette into new directions, introducing rich tones of turquoise and umber punctuated by day-glo safety orange. Although stationary, the pounded brass artillery shells seem to ripple across their surfaces, recalling both dragon scales and armor. Occupying a central place in Vietnamese mythology, the dragon is the symbol of yang, representing the universe, life, and growth. It is also symbolic of the aquatic world, a guardian and protector capable of bringing the rain essential for agriculture, as well as harnessing clouds, thunder and lightning, and drought and flooding. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. deployed a chemical cloud-seeding project that aimed to extend the monsoon season on specific sections of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Drawing from this mythological and military history, Nguyen transforms artillery shells from this conflict, meant to cause irreparable harm, into emblematic monuments to survival.

Bridging past and present, Nguyen explores the embedded empathy and animism of objects alongside the generative power of narrative. These concepts unearth stories of resilience within communities overcoming trauma, providing a space to build new futures rooted in physical concepts of regeneration.