Tuan Andrew Nguyen Tuan Andrew Nguyen

Tuan Andrew Nguyen

Born in 1976 in Sài Gòn, Việt Nam. Lives and works Hồ Chí Minh City, Việt Nam.
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Nguyen Zeitz Mocca Install 2024 Credit Dillionmarsh The Other Side Of Now 24 Updated
Nguyen Zeitz Mocca Install 2024 Credit Dillionmarsh The Other Side Of Now 60
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Tuan Screenshot 1
Exhibition view, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, We Were Lost in Our Country, Art Institute of Chicago, September 5, 2025 - March 9, 2026. © Tuan Andrew Nguyen. Courtesy of the artist, James Cohan, New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago. 2025. Courtesy of the artist, James Cohan, New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Introduction

Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s work explores the critical impact of storytelling across media including video, sculpture, and installation. Based in sustained community engagement and extensive research, his practice engages with oral history, object biographies, genealogies that span continents, and the lingering stronghold of colonial politics. Brushing the vestiges of colonialism against the grain, his works unearth counter-histories sedimented in cultural artifacts, routes of migration, or the fantasies produced by life in exile. 

Full biography

Selected works

example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Temple, 2025
MK82 artillery shell, M117 artillery shell, pounded brass from artillery shell, aluminum, steel, stainless steel, stainless steel cable, wood, composite, paracord, enamel paint
500 x 750 x 1310 cm
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Plume, 2025
Pounded brass from artillery shells, enamel paint, patina, acrylic, plywood, metal bracket
ø 100 cm
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Quiet Bell, 2025
MK-82 artillery shell (tuned to G5, 769.74 Hz), steel, stainless steel, stainless steel cable, wood, composite, enamel paint
75 x 83,7 x 55 cm
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Dragon Tail, 2025
Stainless steel with bomb metal, brass from pounded artillery shell, paracord, bell tuned to A3, 432 Hz
194,9 x 300 cm
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Tremor, 2025
155mm artillery shells, brass from artillery shells, pounded brass from artillery shells, cotton thread, paracord, enamel paint, concrete
202 x 250 cm
Rotating clearance of at least 192 cm
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Sculptures, 2024
Carved wild tropical almond wood, feathers, rope, red ribbon
80 x 29 x 5 cm (oars, each)
67 x 55 x 20 cm (bow)
67 x 55 x 20 cm (stern)
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Broken Sun, 2024
Stainless steel with bomb metal, stainless steel, powder coating
ø 270 cm
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
A Sullen Moon Behind Lit Mountain Tops, 2023
Brass artillery shell tuned to #F5 at 685 Hz, stainless steel cable with rubber mallet, pounded brass artillery shell, brass rods, paracord
200 x 200 cm
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Red Fiery, 2022
Powder coated metal with 3 brass plates made from bombshells and tuned to 432Hz
162,6 x 274,3 cm
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
The Unburied Sounds of a Troubled Horizon, 2022
Single-channel video installation, 4k, color, 5.1 surround sound
Dimensions variable
Duration: 58 min
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Shattered Arms, 2022
Found antique Quan Yin sculpture, brass hands cast from artillery shells
60 x 50 x 40 cm
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Unexploded Resonance, 2022
M117 bomb, dropped from B52, tuned to 432hz, hanger from antique wooden architecture
180 x 120 x 60 cm
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
The Specter of Ancestors Becoming, 2019
4-channel video installation, 2k, 7.1 surround sound
Dimensions variable
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Mile 00 Everywhere OR Replica of Bataan Death March Marker Mile 00, 2019
Hand-carved gmelina wood
151,1 x 41,9 x 41,9 cm
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
The Offering Of A Sentient Cry, 2019
Hand-carved gmelina wood
67,3 x 39,8 x 22,9 cm (left hand)
69,9 x 22,9 x 15,2 cm (right hand)
example
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
My Ailing Beliefs Can Cure Your Wretched Desires, 2017
Two-channel video installation, color, 5.1 surround sound
Dimensions variable
Duration: 18:51 min

External Exhibitions

We Were Lost in Our Country Tuan Andrew Nguyen

We Were Lost in Our Country

Tuan Andrew Nguyen
For the Ngurrara people of Western Australia, Country is not just a place. The word also signifies kinship with the lands, waters, and skies of the Great Sandy Desert, which the Aboriginal...
September 5, 2025—March 9, 2026
Art Institute of Chicago
When Water Embraces Empty Space Tuan Andrew Nguyen

When Water Embraces Empty Space

Tuan Andrew Nguyen
A majestic hand-carved wooden boat is the protagonist of Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn’s new solo exhibition, When Water Embraces Empty Space. The story of the boat, past and present, spreads throughout the entire...
October 30, 2024—January 5, 2025
Edith-Russ-Haus, Oldenburg
The Other Side of Now Tuan Andrew Nguyen

The Other Side of Now

Tuan Andrew Nguyen
This exhibition explored the transnational entanglements created by colonisation and war. Attending to the erased voices of Vietnamese, Senegalese, and Moroccan history, it proposes a space for communal healing and remembrance.
August 22, 2024—September 14, 2025
Zeitz MoCAA, Cape Town
Our Ghosts Live in the Future Tuan Andrew Nguyen

Our Ghosts Live in the Future

Tuan Andrew Nguyen
The Fundació Joan Miró presented the first solo exhibition in Spain of Vietnamese American artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen, winner of the 8th edition of the Joan Miró Prize. The exhibition included some...
May 10—September 24, 2024
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona
Tuan Andrew Nguyen: Radiant Remembrance Tuan Andrew Nguyen

Tuan Andrew Nguyen: Radiant Remembrance

Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Nguyen’s New Museum presentation was be his first solo museum exhibition in the US, showcasing a new film and two video projects alongside works from the artist’s broader practice.
June 29—September 17, 2023
The New Museum, New York
It Was What Is Will Be Tuan Andrew Nguyen

It Was What Is Will Be

Tuan Andrew Nguyen
In the exhibition three films were shown: The Unburied Sounds of a Troubled Horizon (2022) with sculptures produced for this exhibition, The Boat People (2020) and The Island (2017). Together the three...
February 18—April 16, 2023
Marabouparken Konsthall, Sundbyberg, Sweden
All That We Are Is What We Hold In Our Outstretched Hands Tuan Andrew Nguyen

All That We Are Is What We Hold In Our Outstretched Hands

Tuan Andrew Nguyen
This exhibition centres on Tuan’s 2019 film, The Specter of Ancestors Becoming made in collaboration with Raw Material Company in Dakar, Senegal. The work envisions the memories and desires of the descendants...
February 11—March 25, 2023
Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow
From Saigon to Saigon Tuan Andrew Nguyen

From Saigon to Saigon

Tuan Andrew Nguyen
This exhibition showcased a recently acquired series of nine photographs by Tuan Andrew Nguyen (b. 1976 in Saigon, Vietnam) titled From Saigon to Saigon. The photographs document the handwritten correspondence from a...
September 8, 2018—September 9, 2019
Asia Society, New York
Empty Forest Tuan Andrew Nguyen

Empty Forest

Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Empty Forest by Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn was a solo exhibition showcasing film, sculpture, photography – revealing a landscape where the industry of ailing spiritual beliefs is feeding the most wretched of human...
December 9, 2017—February 7, 2018
The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City
The Island Tuan Andrew Nguyen

The Island

Tuan Andrew Nguyen
The exhibition was the West Coast premiere of Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s film The Island (2017). The film was shot entirely on Pulau Bidong, an island off the coast of Malaysia that became...
February 21—April 7, 2017
The Mistake Room, Los Angeles

Featured stories

Now Representing – Tuan Andrew Nguyen Esther Schipper is delighted to announce the representation of Tuan Andrew Nguyen, in collaboration...
News

Now Representing – Tuan Andrew Nguyen

Esther Schipper is delighted to announce the representation of Tuan Andrew Nguyen, in collaboration with James Cohan.
Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s work explores the critical impact of storytelling across media including video, sculpture, and installation. Based in sustained community engagement and extensive research, his practice engages with oral history, object...
Tuan Andrew Nguyen mentioned in Artsy's '11 Artists Having Breakout Moments in 2026' Artsy
Press

Tuan Andrew Nguyen mentioned in Artsy's "11 Artists Having Breakout Moments in 2026"

Artsy
'Tuan Andrew Nguyen uses documentary strategies and speculative storytelling to create layered, poetic narratives that foreground voices excluded from official histories,' writes Annabel Keenan. 'In 2025, Nguyen earned a prestigious MacArthur fellowship....
Read article
Tuan Andrew Nguyen Wins High Line Commission
Events

Tuan Andrew Nguyen Wins High Line Commission

The High Line announced the selection of Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s The Light that Shines Through the Universe as the next High Line Plinth commission. The 27-foot-tall sculpture will be installed in spring...
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Tuan Andrew Nguyen awarded the 2025 MacArthur Fellowship
Events

Tuan Andrew Nguyen awarded the 2025 MacArthur Fellowship

Esther Schipper is pleased to announce that Tuan Andrew Nguyen has been awarded with the 2025 MacArthur Fellowship. The Nguyen MacArthur Foundation recognized Nguyen for 'giving aesthetic form to histories of war,...
Read article