The High Line in New York has selected artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen to produce its next plinth commission, scheduled to open next spring.
Titled The Light That Shines Through the Universe, the commission will see Nguyen present a re-created version of one of the two Bamiyan Buddhas that once stood on a cliff in central Afghanistan. Dating to the 6th century CE, the Bamiyan Buddhas are typically seen as symbols of the syncretism of cultures along the Silk Road.
The Buddha’s hands were lost centuries ago as part of waves of iconoclasm. They were fully destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001, 25 years from when the work is to go on view. All that remains of the Buddhas is the niches were they once stood, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Nguyen will not replicate the Buddha exactly, but present “an echo, intended to invoke the memory of these lost cultural treasures,” according to a release. He will also replace their lost hands with ones made from melted down brass artillery shells. Measuring 27 feet tall, the sandstone sculpture’s title takes its name from the local nickname for the Bamiyan Buddhas: Salsal, which translates to “the light shines through the universe.”
“Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s The Light That Shines Through the Universe is a timely monument for our public space,” Cecilia Alemani, director and chief curator of High Line Art, said in a statement. “It stands today as a powerful and poetic counterpoint to extremism and iconoclasm we continue to witness globally. By resurrecting the memory of the lost Bamiyan Buddhas, The Light That Shines Through the Universe reminds us that cultural treasures—and shared history—can transcend physical destruction.”
Nguyen, based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is known for a wide-ranging practice spanning sculpture and video. His work often deals with cultural memory and loss, usually as it relates to people and regions impacted by war, and particularly regarding Vietnam. His filmic work is known for merging fact and fiction to reorient and examine anew dominant histories and the legacies of colonialism.
A recent work, The Unburied Sounds of a Troubled Horizon (2022), takes up similar concerns to The Light That Shines Through the Universe. That film followed a mother and daughter who ran a junkyard shop in the North Central Coast of Vietnam. They rely on scavenging unexploded ordnances (UXO) that continue to contaminate the region. The daughter, Nguyet, also makes mobile sculptures from these scraps that resemble the work of Alexander Calder. As part of the larger body of work, Nguyen has made several of these Calder-inspired mobiles from UXO and melted down brass artillery shells.
“This sculpture is a towering, 27-foot call to remembrance, asserting that our collective memory and our shared humanity remain the most enduring antidote against those who seek to break and scatter the human spirit,” Alan van Capelle, executive director of Friends of the High Line, said in a statement. “What happened to the Buddhas of Bamiyan is not unique and is particularly resonant for many people across this country today who face a real fear of erasure and cultural persecution. A work of this magnitude requires a platform of equal magnitude, and I hope its debut on the Plinth offers people a powerful place to connect and find strength in this moment.”
