bye bye

Danh Vo’s exploration of Western, especially Catholic, influence in Vietnam is apparent in bye bye, a photogravure reproducing a photograph of five young French missionaries taken in 1952. Jean-Théophane Vénard, the man on the far left, was imprisoned and beheaded during his mission in Vietnam. He was canonized by Pope Paul II in 1988. Venárd’s farewell letter to his father forms the material of Vo’s ongoing project 02.02.1861, for which Vo’s own father has been reproducing handwritten transcripts of Vénard’s letter since 2009.