Dinh Q. Lê
Encyclopedia
Dinh Q. Lê is a Vietnamese American
fine arts photographer, best known for his woven-photographs.
Dinh Q. Lê was born in 1968 in Hà Tiên
, a Vietnam
ese town near the Cambodia
border. The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia took place in 1978, when Lê was ten, his family emigrated to Los Angeles thereafter. After Lê received BFA degree in photography from University of California, Santa Barbara
, inspired and taught by his aunt during childhood, he started his first photo-weavings using a traditional technique. He continued this skillful presentation while earning his MFA degree from The School of Visual Arts
in New York
. His artwork includes installation, video, sculpture, and urban intervention. Dinh Q. Lê spends time in both Vietnam and Los Angeles
producing his work.
. Viewers need to spend some time in seeking and following the woven patterns in order to fully appreciate the intricate composition of imagery. Viewers enjoy searching for the significance and deep feelings in one strip overlapping another. While visually entering a state of seeking the cinematic montage fading in and out of the images, Dinh Q. Lê's meticulous effort in creating these unique images is being admired. Francesco Bonami (curator of the 50th Venice Biennale
) highlighted his distinctive photo-weavings artwork, and an entire room is dedicated for his works in the Italian Pavilion in 2003.
s that reveal his feelings. Linen tape is used to finish the edges, with his meticulous and precise craftsmanship.
Using photographs taken of the Vietnam War and images of himself as well as his family, Dinh Q. Lê makes astounding work. In his “Waking Dreams”, he combines two extreme themes, namely beauty and terror. He also merges eastern and western cultures, current and historical, personal and fictional realities, through intertwining photographic strips.
, he grew up watching a tremendous amount of films about Vietnam War. However, as he has never experienced any helicopters during the war, he found out that a memory that does not belong to him is imposed on him through films. His work includes both his collective memories and anxieties. His mixed feelings are presented by different characters in his work such as “the cowgirl-costumed Playboy bunny
toting a toy pistol from Apocalypse Now intertwined with South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan
and Viet Cong suspect Bay L op” in one of his strongest works. The execution was captured in Eddie Adam's stunning photograph; the two beautiful women replace Bay Lop in front of General Loan's gun. One being an anonymous black-and-white photo of a woman from the 1960s are woven into the leading actress in the Graham Greene
film The Quiet American
. The initial beauty of the photo appeals viewer instantly until calmly and quietly the image of General Loan appears.
As he is interested in the ongoing effects of the Vietnam War on present and past societies, Lê is asserting an emphatic subject matter from a rare sociopolitical perspective. He keeps on documenting subjects in his native country. For example, birth defect caused by the U.S. military's use of Agent Orange
. He also worked with Cambodian refugee children and often addresses personal experience of life in Vietnam during and after the war.
, the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
, Cambridge, Massachusetts
and Santa Cruz, California
. In 2004, he was included in Beyond Boundaries: Contemporary Photography In California
, an exhibition which traveled to California State University
, Long Beach
, CA and to the Friends of Photography in San Francisco, CA. This show follows his exhibition at the UC Santa Barbara Museum in Spring 2003.
The first major survey of Dinh's work, "A Tapestry of Memories: The Art of Dinh Q. Le", was recently organized by Bellevue Arts Museum, in Bellevue, WA, and an accompanying catalog was published.
The Museum of Modern Art
(New York) and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
have also acquired his works since 2004. The Asia Society has invited Dinh Q. Lê to participate in a solo show in 2005. A full color catalogue, with essays and an interview, is available in his first show in Hong Kong
, at Chancery Lane Gallery.
The Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney, Australia commissioned and exhibited Erasure – an interactive sculptural and video installation that draws on recent debates in Australia concerning refugees and asylum seekers - which was shown from July - September, 2011. The gallery was transformed into a shipwreck and amid the destruction, the gallery floor was strewn with approximate 100,000 of black and white photographs – self-portraits, family and passport photos – which Dinh spent years buying in second-hand stores in the hope of finding his own family’s pictures. During the exhibition, visitors are encouraged to pick up these photographs which will be removed one by one, scanned, catalogued, stored and uploaded to a purpose built Erasure Archive for people to browse through this collection of oan hon (lost souls) and perhaps find their own families. A catalogue was published to accompany the exhibition.
Vietnamese American
A Vietnamese American is an American of Vietnamese descent. They make up about half of all overseas Vietnamese and are the fourth-largest Asian American group....
fine arts photographer, best known for his woven-photographs.
Dinh Q. Lê was born in 1968 in Hà Tiên
Hà Tiên
Hà Tiên or Ha Tien is a town in Kien Giang Province, Tay Nam Bo of Vietnam. Area: 8,851.5 ha, population : 39,957. The town borders Cambodia to the west....
, a Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
ese town near the Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
border. The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia took place in 1978, when Lê was ten, his family emigrated to Los Angeles thereafter. After Lê received BFA degree in photography from University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
, inspired and taught by his aunt during childhood, he started his first photo-weavings using a traditional technique. He continued this skillful presentation while earning his MFA degree from The School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. His artwork includes installation, video, sculpture, and urban intervention. Dinh Q. Lê spends time in both Vietnam and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
producing his work.
Traditional inspiration
As one would weave a traditional grass mat in Vietnam, Dinh Q. Lê uses photographic strips and weaves them into an image. His woven photographs consist of several layers, which immediately attract and combine one's perception into mixed feelings. A mixture of joyfulness and sorrow is seen in the interlacing of a colorful fantasy and mournful pictures of the Vietnam WarVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Viewers need to spend some time in seeking and following the woven patterns in order to fully appreciate the intricate composition of imagery. Viewers enjoy searching for the significance and deep feelings in one strip overlapping another. While visually entering a state of seeking the cinematic montage fading in and out of the images, Dinh Q. Lê's meticulous effort in creating these unique images is being admired. Francesco Bonami (curator of the 50th Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
) highlighted his distinctive photo-weavings artwork, and an entire room is dedicated for his works in the Italian Pavilion in 2003.
Medium
By weaving strips of photos together using a planting procedure, Dinh Q. Lê creates large-scale photo-montages. Images are layered in a repetition of patterning with glossy tapestries made entirely out of type C printType C print
Chromogenic color prints are full-color photographic prints made using chromogenic materials and processes. These prints may be produced from an original which is a color negative, slide, or digital image. The chromogenic print process, was nearly synonymous with the 20th century color snapshot...
s that reveal his feelings. Linen tape is used to finish the edges, with his meticulous and precise craftsmanship.
Using photographs taken of the Vietnam War and images of himself as well as his family, Dinh Q. Lê makes astounding work. In his “Waking Dreams”, he combines two extreme themes, namely beauty and terror. He also merges eastern and western cultures, current and historical, personal and fictional realities, through intertwining photographic strips.
Real and imagined memory
Having his real and imagined memory of the Vietnam War as a theme, Dinh Q. Lê creates photographs with a different approach. After his family arrived the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, he grew up watching a tremendous amount of films about Vietnam War. However, as he has never experienced any helicopters during the war, he found out that a memory that does not belong to him is imposed on him through films. His work includes both his collective memories and anxieties. His mixed feelings are presented by different characters in his work such as “the cowgirl-costumed Playboy bunny
Playboy Bunny
A Playboy Bunny is a waitress at the Playboy Club. The Playboy Clubs were originally open from 1960 to 1988. The Club re-opened in one location in The Palms Hotel in Las Vegas in 2006...
toting a toy pistol from Apocalypse Now intertwined with South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan
Nguyen Ngoc Loan
General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan was the Republic of Vietnam's Chief of National Police. Nguyễn gained international attention when he executed handcuffed prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém, a Viet Cong soldier, on February 1, 1968 in front of Vo Suu, an NBC cameraman, and Eddie Adams, an Associated Press photographer...
and Viet Cong suspect Bay L op” in one of his strongest works. The execution was captured in Eddie Adam's stunning photograph; the two beautiful women replace Bay Lop in front of General Loan's gun. One being an anonymous black-and-white photo of a woman from the 1960s are woven into the leading actress in the Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
film The Quiet American
The Quiet American
The Quiet American is an anti-war novel by British author Graham Greene, first published in United Kingdom in 1955 and in the United States in 1956. It was adapted into films in 1958 and 2002. The book draws on Greene's experiences as a war correspondent for The Times and Le Figaro in French...
. The initial beauty of the photo appeals viewer instantly until calmly and quietly the image of General Loan appears.
As he is interested in the ongoing effects of the Vietnam War on present and past societies, Lê is asserting an emphatic subject matter from a rare sociopolitical perspective. He keeps on documenting subjects in his native country. For example, birth defect caused by the U.S. military's use of Agent Orange
Agent Orange
Agent Orange is the code name for one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth...
. He also worked with Cambodian refugee children and often addresses personal experience of life in Vietnam during and after the war.
The impact of cultural shift
Apart from creating pictures that address the war and his memory. He interlaces the photographs taken during the Vietnam War with today's richly colored images from commercial packaging materials, such as candy wrappers, pop bottles and cereal boxes. A cultural shift in Vietnam in present days is being illustrated in his new collages. As globalizing corporate logos and symbols gradually replace the war imagery that has long dominated the country's visual language.Exhibitions
Dinh Q. Lê's artwork has been the theme of solo exhibitions at the Houston Center for Photography, the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies in an exhibition titled The Headless Buddha, which traveled to Portland, OregonPortland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
and Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...
. In 2004, he was included in Beyond Boundaries: Contemporary Photography In California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, an exhibition which traveled to California State University
California State University
The California State University is a public university system in the state of California. It is one of three public higher education systems in the state, the other two being the University of California system and the California Community College system. It is incorporated as The Trustees of the...
, Long Beach
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
, CA and to the Friends of Photography in San Francisco, CA. This show follows his exhibition at the UC Santa Barbara Museum in Spring 2003.
The first major survey of Dinh's work, "A Tapestry of Memories: The Art of Dinh Q. Le", was recently organized by Bellevue Arts Museum, in Bellevue, WA, and an accompanying catalog was published.
The Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
(New York) and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
have also acquired his works since 2004. The Asia Society has invited Dinh Q. Lê to participate in a solo show in 2005. A full color catalogue, with essays and an interview, is available in his first show in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, at Chancery Lane Gallery.
The Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney, Australia commissioned and exhibited Erasure – an interactive sculptural and video installation that draws on recent debates in Australia concerning refugees and asylum seekers - which was shown from July - September, 2011. The gallery was transformed into a shipwreck and amid the destruction, the gallery floor was strewn with approximate 100,000 of black and white photographs – self-portraits, family and passport photos – which Dinh spent years buying in second-hand stores in the hope of finding his own family’s pictures. During the exhibition, visitors are encouraged to pick up these photographs which will be removed one by one, scanned, catalogued, stored and uploaded to a purpose built Erasure Archive for people to browse through this collection of oan hon (lost souls) and perhaps find their own families. A catalogue was published to accompany the exhibition.
Awards
Dinh Q. Lê has received several awards and grants, including a Gunk Foundation Public Project Grant in 1998; an NEA Fellowship in Photography 1994; The Dupont Fellowship in 1994; and The Aaron Siskind Fellowship in 1992.External links
- http://www.portlandart.net/archives/2009/05/signalled_from.html
- http://www.bellevuearts.org/exhibitions/current/dinh_q_le.htm
- http://www.artamplitude.net/laos/quiet-in-the-land/dinh_q_le.htm
- http://www.shoshanawayne.com/artists/DINHQLE/0.html
- http://www.ppowgallery.com/artists/DinhQLe/bio.html
- http://arts.ucsc.edu/sesnon/exhibitions/buddha/index.html
- http://www.10chancerylanegallery.com/exhibitions/catalog/2004/DinhQLe/press_release/