Sanyo

In his works made using cardboard and gold leaf, as well as his assemblages of found objects, Danh Vo challenges the supposed appeal of Western material values. In Sanyo, the artist applied a sheet of gold leaf to a piece of cardboard, thus inverting the value of these objects to create a work that, in his words, "seeks and promises salvation".

Danh Vo has repeatedly worked with the American flag, an iconic symbol exported the world over, depicting it in all its historical iterations. In fact, it originally featured 13 stars, a number that grew as more states were added to the Union.  Sanyo is the largest of the cardboard flags made by Vo. It features the 13 stars of the original version of the American flag.

The Pinault Collection showed this work for the first at the Icones exhibition at Punta della Dogana in Venice in 2023