» 2.2.1861

Titled 2.2.1861, the work duplicates the last letter home of the French missionary Jean-Théopane Vénard (1829–1861), who was executed on the titular date in the Tonkin region of Vietnam. A few times a week for the best part of a decade, Phung Vo, the artist’s father, has transcribed this document, carefully rendering it in blue fountain pen on a single sheet of white A4 paper, and will continue to do so until arrested by infirmity or death. Commissioned by his son, the task is meditative and intensely serial in nature. It is also an act of devotion of sorts. Phung converted from Confucianism to Catholicism following the 1963 assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the pro-American president of South Vietnam who was also a fervent Catholic – a personal gesture of political protest that developed into an earnestly held faith. Although he is unable to decipher the French words he painstakingly copies, he is aware that the content relates to a martyr of his church. 

Below is the letter’s English translation:

J.M.J 

January 20, 1861

Dearest, honored, and beloved Father, 

since my sentence is yet to come, I wish to address you a new farewell, probably the last one. My days in prison are going by peacefully. Everyone around honors me, and many even love me. From the great Mandarin to the last soldier, all regret that the law of the kingdom condemns me to the death sentence. I have not endured any tortures, like many of my brothers. A slight strike of a sword will behead me, like a spring flower picked by the garden Master for pleasure. We are all flowers growing on this earth, picked by God at some point, a little earlier for some, a little later for others. One is the crimson rose, another the virginal lily, another the humble violet. Let us all try to please the Lord and Master, with the perfume or radiance we were given.

I wish you, dear Father, a long, peaceful, and virtuous old age. Bare your life cross gently, following the path of Jesus, till the Calvary of a felicitous death. Father and son will meet again in heaven. I, small transient being, am to leave first. Farewell.

Your devoted and respectful son.

J. Théophane Vénard

m.s.

(Text and translation courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery)