DANH VO (B. 1975)

2.2.1861

ink on paper

sheet: 11 5/8 x 8 1/4 inches (29.6 x 21 cm)

framed: 15 × 11 1/4 × 1 inches (38.1 × 28.6 × 2.5 cm)

Executed in 2009. Title and edition number remain undefined until the death of Phung Vo. Published by White Cube, London.

"2.02.1861 complicates traditional notions of authorship and demonstrates the centrality of familial relationships within Danh Vo’s work, especially the father-son relationship that is presented here as a tragic historical archetype." - Lauren Hinkson, Associate Curator, Guggenheim New York, USA.

EXHIBITED:

New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away, February-May 2018, front cover and p. 185 (another example illustrated).

NOTES:

Danh Vo is a conceptual artist whose practice mines the intersections of identity, colonial history, and personal inheritance. Born in Vietnam and raised in Denmark after his family fled by boat following the fall of Saigon, Vo constructs works that collapse the personal and political—often using found objects, archival material, and familial relationships to examine the aftershocks of imperialism and displacement.

2.2.1861 is among Vo’s most iconic and enduring projects. Each sheet features the transcription of a farewell letter written by French Catholic missionary Jean-Théophane Vénard the night before his execution in Vietnam. But the hand behind the text is not Vo’s—it is that of his father, Phung Vo, whose flowing cursive lends the work a charged intimacy. Rendered in black ink on A4 paper, each version of 2.2.1861 is materially identical, yet conceptually unique. The work exists in a suspended state—its title and edition number to remain undefined until the death of Phung Vo. In this way, Vo imbues the piece with a sense of ongoing time, grief, and generational transmission.

Held in the collections of institutions including MoMA, the Guggenheim, and Tate, 2.2.1861 stands as a quiet but radical gesture—transforming a colonial artifact into a deeply personal act of transcription, memory, and defiance.