Photo © Présidence de la République – L. Blevennec
Some stories are good to hear. Anthony Phuong’s is one of them. Who would expect this young Sino-Vietnamese gallery owner at the head of one of the most beautiful galleries in Saint-Germain? Such a success deserves recognition. He has always lived among paintings (he’s from a framers’ family), nothing but passion destined him to follow this path. Driven by immense energy and a mad desire, for 6 years he has gathered about twenty loyal artists, his artistic family for “the project of his life”. His credo? Human relationships and pure emotion. This “Cultural Métis” –which is how he describes himself– encounters established artists –like the famous Wang Keping– and launches others, with, sometimes, some unusual paths. One of them: Hom Nguyen, “the hero the art world was missing”, who exhibited last June at the Palais de Tokyo, with Isabelle Adjani as sponsor. Today, acknowledged overseas –he even sparked the president Hollande’s interest at Art Paris– the self-taught artist’s story is a fairy tale: shoe shiner, he made a name through his patina on luxury shoes… before changing the medium. Today, his large format drawings and paintings bring together faces with stunning glances, veritable “mental projections”. His last set, Sans Repères, evokes the difficult journey of the migrants. One can only be touched by this willingness to expand the boundaries and to break the codes: spread over 5 levels, in a very Zen atmosphere, A2Z gallery’s prime ambition is to be a living space, receiving an audience of collectors and neophytes. For Anthony, who often holds on-site conferences, “each piece is a door whose key is inside ourselves. As soon as you open the first door, you open others”. His place is like him: visionary.
24, rue de l’Echaudé – 75006 Paris
Phone: 01 56 24 88 88 – www.a2z-art.com