The Franco-Vietnamese artist Bao Vuong presents a dense work, sculpted in material and filled with silence. An emotionally charged opening, also driven by a strong cultural ambition for Nice.
Bao Vuong: At the Edge of Ashes and Waves
The Departmental Museum of Asian Arts in Nice inaugurates the exhibition Behind the Waves, dedicated to the artist Franco-Vietnamese Bao Vuong. An invitation to dive into the depths of a memory marked by exile.
Born in Vietnam in 1978 and forced to flee the country the following year with his family, Bao Vuong is part of the generation of boat people whose nocturnal crossings, silences, and absences still haunt the shores of history. This foundational episode has become the connecting thread of an introspective body of work, constructed over the years between Paris and a long initiatory return to his native land.
His art, deeply meditative, is expressed through oil painting worked with a spatula. This raw and physical technique literally sculpts the material. Bao Vuong’s paintings, dark but never opaque, are adorned with almost mineral-like reliefs, as if shaped by the elements. This density is met by an unexpected technique, as the skies of his seascapes are created using ashes of incense sticks, embodying spirituality and suspended memory. For Bao Vuong, each canvas is a ritual, a space of contemplation where art becomes embodied memory.
The exhibition Behind the Waves, designed as a sensory journey, perfectly aligns with the mission of the Museum of Asian Arts, which combines Oriental traditions with contemporary creations. Imagined by the famous Japanese architect Kenzō Tange, the building, set on an artificial lake along the Promenade des Anglais, hosts a work that is both intimate and universal.
A Cultural Ambition for Nice
Present at the event, the deputy Éric Ciotti praised this artistic initiative as a necessary impulse for the cultural life of Nice: “Nice needs to radiate, Nice needs culture, Nice needs exhibitions, Nice needs cultural venues in the theater, music, and museum sectors. That’s what we want to help instill in our land.” A strong message for a territory in search of artistic roots and openness to the world.