Working in photography, film, and installation, Dinh Q. Lê (1968-2024) presented little-known narratives of war and migration from the perspective of the global Vietnamese diaspora. Synthesizing his own memory and perception with popular depictions in entertainment and journalism from Western and Eastern cultures, Lê’s singular voice reframed global histories of Southern Vietnam, challenging censorship, exploitation, and propaganda from all sides. Lê was born in Ha Tien, a Vietnamese town near the Cambodia border. Soon after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978, the Lê family immigrated to Los Angeles. After receiving a BFA from UC Santa Barbara, Lê began his first photo-weavings using a traditional technique he learned from his aunt. Lê participated in the 2013 Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; the 2009 Biennale Cuveê, OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria; the 2008 Singapore Biennale, Singapore; and the 2006 Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia. His work has been exhibited at major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; MoMA PS1, New York, NY; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Tufts University Art Gallery, MA; and the Asia Society, NY; among many others. In 2010, he was awarded the Prince Claus Award for his outstanding contribution to cultural exchange. P·P·O·W has represented Lê since 1998, presenting seven solo exhibitions before his sudden passing in April 2024. Devoted to asserting his own cultural history through his artistic practice, Lê established the nonprofit contemporary art space Sàn Art, leaving behind space for future generations to engage in their own pursuit of reclamation. In The Art Newspaper, Christopher Moore noted that “Dinh was an uncle to everyone in the Vietnamese art scene, young or old, local or foreigner, mentor to many.” In 2022, Lê was the subject of the exhibition The thread of memory and other photographs, musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris, France, and was featured in Living Pictures: Photography in Southeast Asia, which was on view at the National Gallery Singapore through August 2023. He will be featured in Legacies: The Asian American Art Movement on the East Coast (1969-2001) at NYU’s 80WSE Gallery in fall 2024.
Profile picture and bio in courtesy of P.P.O.W Gallery.
Writings:
DINH Q. LÊ (1968–2024), Passages, Artforum, Vol. 62, No. 10, SUMMER 2024
Dương Mạnh Hùng, “Make a Big Quilt Out of It”: How Art and History Interweave in Dinh Q. Lê’s Crossing the Farther Shore, The American Historical Review, Volume 128, Issue 4, December 2023, Pages 1718–1727, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhad481