Thinking in Lacquer: The Sơn Mài Code at the Venice Biennale Book Pavilion
The Bui Huu Hung Foundation is pleased to present the Third Manuscript of The Sơn Mài Code at the Book Pavilion in the Giardini of the 61st Biennale di Venezia, Arte.
Rather than a fixed publication, The Sơn Mài Code was conceived as a living editorial project. The third manuscript, like lacquer as a material, reflects this ongoing formation: a structure still being tested, expanded, and refined through dialogue. Presented in a state of becoming, the manuscript enters Venice within the curatorial framework of Koyo Kouoh’s In Minor Keys, a proposition that privileges subtlety, attunement, and the generative potential of what unfolds at the margins.
The core of the Manuscript is a deliberate parallel between two evolving bodies of work — the painted compositions executed on book covers with Vietnamese traditional lacquer by the master Bui Huu Hung, and the future, fully realised volume they anticipate.
The manuscript’s development is shaped in close exchange with scholars, artists, and practitioners of Vietnamese lacquer. Their critical readings, annotations, and counterpoints are integral to the book’s construction. Through this process of feedback and revision, the project resists closure, instead embracing a methodology grounded in accretion, contradiction, and re-articulation.
Exhibited in the Venice Biennale’s Book Pavilion, the manuscript situates sơn mài (lacquer) in a broader discourse on knowledge production. It proposes Vietnamese lacquer not only as a medium of art-making, but also a system of thought: one that demands slowness and sincerity.
The Third Manuscript thus operates as both document and proposition. It invites viewers to engage with the book not as a finished artefact, but as a working surface where material practice, critical discourse, and editorial form converge.
Still in formation, and resolutely open.
Visiting Information:
The Book Pavilion is located within the Giardini della Biennale, the historic park that hosts the national pavilions of the Venice Biennale. Visitors can find it along the main exhibition route, in proximity to the Central Pavilion.
Address:
Giardini della Biennale
Calle Giazzo, 30122 Venice, Italy
The Giardini are accessible via Vaporetto (water bus), with the closest stop being Giardini / Biennale. From there, the Book Pavilion is a short walk inside the grounds.
