Friday, April 9, 2010

An-My Le


Arts West Gallery, March 7 - April 14
Closing reception and discussion (with pizza!): Wednesday, April 14, 12:30 PM, Arts West Foyer

An-My Le, a Vietnamese refugee, examines the complex cultures of warfare through the combined lenses of traditional documentary photography and the drama of Hollywood films. Her work focuses on Vietnam War re-enactments and military training sites to prepare soldiers for service in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lovely aesthetics and dispassionate distance of her photographs seem to belie the sobering nature of battle while complementing the truth of their simulation. This dissonance brings into question the viewer’s assumptions about the depiction and realities of war.

An-My Le currently teaches in the photography program at Bard College. Exhibitions include Rhode Island School of Design, Columbia College, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Cornell University. She was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and her work resides in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.

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