A Saigon-born artist’s work made from salvaged unexploded munitions recovered from Central Vietnam is the newest Phoenix Art Museum acquisition.

“Reflection Between Flashes,” from 2023, by Tuan Andrew Nguyen was purchased with money from Men’s Arts Council and is the first work by Nguyen in the Museum’s collection of more than 21,000 objects.

Nguyen, whose work was recently presented in solo exhibitions at Zeitz MoCAA in Cape Town, South Africa, as well as at James Cohan in New York City, is internationally known for his video and sculpture that examine colonial histories and supernaturalisms by tapping into inherited histories and counter-memory, a Museum press release notes.

“Reflection Between Flashes” is inspired by the works of Alexander Calder but made from salvaged unexploded munitions recovered from Central Vietnam. The mobile expands representation of contemporary Southeast Asian artists in the Museum’s Asian art collection.

The Museum has not yet announced when the work will be on view in the galleries.

“Nguyen’s work regularly unearths stories of resilience, community, and regeneration, reminding us of the memories that objects and materials can hold and how artists can transform them to be seen and experienced in new ways by contemporary audiences,” Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO, stated.

Born in Saigon and now based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Los Angeles, Nguyen and his family emigrated in 1979 as refugees to the United States. In 1999, he graduated from the Fine Arts program at the University of California, Irvine, and in 2004 earned his Master of Fine Arts from The California Institute of the Arts.

His sculptures are regularly made from fragments of unexploded ordnances recovered in the Quang Trị region of central Vietnam, the site of the largest aerial bombardment in history.

“With his mobile works, Nguyen explores the concept of not merely reusing or recycling material from unexploded ordnance, but material reincarnation,” Colin Pearson, the Museum’s curator of Asian art, stated. “The result is the rebirth of leftovers from a devastating war into an incredibly elegant kinetic sculpture that exudes healing energy to enhance the world around it.”