In the sun-drenched rooms at the James Cohan gallery on Walker Street in New York City, a gleaming sound sculpture made of reflective silver disks titled A Rumble Across the Sky (2022) took such prominence that for a moment it visually—and erroneously—claimed its place as the main event of Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s recent exhibition. A gallery employee performed a sound demonstration with a mallet, which made the Calderesque mobile bellow like a sonorous wind chime. Behind an adjacent wall sat four Singing Bowls (2022) made from evacuated artillery shells and mallets that reveal the percussive beauty of these objects. On the surrounding walls, two large mounted digital C-prints told the real-world origin story of these metal instruments and their excavation, both with the identical title: Unexploded Ordnance, 16 in. 50 caliber, Sông Ngân hamlet, Linh Thượng Village, Gio Linh district, Quảng Trị, January 14, 2021, 2022. Nguyen included...

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