CULTURE
An-My Lê (American, b. Vietnam, 1960), Untitled, Ho Chi Minh City, from the series Viêt Nam, 1995. Gelatin silver print, 15 3/4 x 22 1/2 in., courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery © An-My Lê
History and Memory in ‘An-My Lê: On Contested Terrain’ BY DAVID LUHRSSEN
T
he news footage of Afghan allies fleeing Kabul recalled pictures of a similar exodus when South Vietnam fell in 1975. That earlier event was formative to An-My Lê, an adolescent who fled Vietnam with her family and grew up in the U.S. An overview of her work, “An-My Lê: On Contested Terrain,” is at the Milwaukee Art Museum through March 27. Originating from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art, “On Contested Terrain” consists of more than 100 photographs, many offering what Lê calls “a side-glance view” of war and its impact.
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Lê began making photographs in the 1990s during her first return visit to Vietnam. Like other photographs displayed in the first set of galleries, they are stark black and white images that leave more space for the imagination than full color. Lê uses a view camera sitting on a tripod, the technology used by photographers of the American Civil War. Her pictures of Vietnamese faces, landscapes and urban scenes are the antithesis of today’s digital photography. They aren’t snapped on the fly and meant to be scrolled superficially.
