By Kit Freeman
The Amon Carter Museum of American Art has become home to the first comprehensive survey of contemporary photographer An-My Lê. A Vietnamese photographer, An-My Lê (b. 1960) will present her work in a vast collection of black-and-white and color photographs, all of which are monumental in scale. The exhibition, An–My Lê: On Contested Terrain, will be on view April 18 through August 8, 2021 and consists of five series which draws on both Lê’s career and the volatile yet everyday life of the US Military. Lê’s photographs underscore the history of war, and brings about contemporary questions that surround violence, war, and the aftermath.
Inspired by 19th-century photographs of Timothy O’Sullivan and Mathew Brady’s civil war collections, Lê’s ambitions are to bring about awareness of the consequences and daily lives of war veterans, family, and her personal experiences with war. She questions and examines how war photography can create discourse on the lives that are sacrificed during a war, and how the consequences impact memory.
Drawing on her experience of living in a war zone in Vietnam, and later evacuating, Lê brings intimacy to her work even including vivid memories of her young childhood. She is seen in a few of the images in the exhibition posing as one of the bodies engulfed by the monumental landscapes. Lê incorporates the land into every piece of her work and investigate how landscapes are integral in understanding life and experience around war.
The national touring exhibition acts as a portfolio for Lê, which depicts her technical accomplishments as in black-and-white photography. Complexity also runs through the exhibition, offering discussion on the intricate experience of war most often derived from land. Lê executes this clearly in her consideration of land and experience. On Contested Terrain presents an expansive collection of Lê’s works, culminating in five series: Viet Nam (1994-98), Small Wars (1999-2002), 29 Palms (2003-2004), Events Ashore (2005-14), and her most recent and ongoing series, Silent General (2015-ongoing).
Exhibition curator, Kristen Gaylord, who curates photography for the Amon Carter, expands on why she enjoyed researching and curating Contested Terrain. “It is the first retrospective of Lê’s work, and it is really exciting to see it come to life,” Gaylord says. “The exhibition is a personal reckoning with her homeland, and a discussion of her country’s land in the fear of change.”
Contested Terrain, for Gaylord, is also an intimate experience, for Lê’s beautiful images depict an internal conflict for the artist. “It is evident in a lot of these photographs that we can see her exploring what it means to live in conflict with the past and future,” Gaylord muses. “The exhibition is quintessential in its exploration of land, and how thematic interest meets formal excellence.”
Born in Saigon during the Vietnam War, Lê relies on her vivid memories to produce evocative images over a course of over two decades. Lê returned to Vietnam twenty years after her evacuation, reminding her of her homeland and how it infiltrates her work in a powerful way.
As Gaylord waltzed throughout the exhibition space, pointing and gazing at the photographs, all hung in a way that forces the viewer to reckon with the depicted experiences, she shared her favorite pieces in the exhibition. Untitled, Hanoi (1995) is a black and white yet vibrant delineation of the kinds of movements that happen throughout a war. Intentionally blurred, the figures are seen in motion, and Lê forces a provoking sense of uncertainty in the image. Intricately posed yet moving, the photograph begins with a figure sitting on a tree stump, and winds into a fast-paced movement with background figures playing soccer. Also in the background is an endless building, towering over the main subjects, almost forcing itself to be a permanent and vital fixture. The photograph, according to Gaylord, is an accurate and simple depiction of the daily life of a warzone. “It’s stable yet blurred with motion, and that’s why it is my favorite piece in the retrospective,” Gaylord says. “It’s a very formal setup. There is no snapshot aesthetic here, and Lê’s camera almost acts as a passport, allowing her to enter these spaces, and curate them into scenes.”
In the photographs themselves, the curator adds that Lê is very generous with her camera, making all the figures seem “real” despite being posed. Utilizing the landscape such as the rocky and bare lands of mid-land California, Lê imbeds the idea that the photographs seem abroad, invoking this metaphor of ‘unknownness’ in her photographs. “It’s foreign land, for the viewer, but it isn’t,” Gaylord says. The juxtaposition between foreignness and American-ness allows Lê to be intentional with enormous landscapes that dwarf the figures.
As the series progress, the viewer walks through the space, indicated by colored walls to iterate which series is presented. Also enhancing the viewer’s experience, the series shift from black-and-white photographs to dramatic colored photographs. “The shift offers a sense of scope. Lê believed that black-and-white photographs weren’t enough to differentiate the ocean, and she wanted to overwhelm the viewer with detail as the exhibition progressed,” Gaylord shares.
The last series, which contextualizes the political conversations that surround today’s climate, explores the tectonic crack that runs through the country. Silent General is a series that questions the division the United States permeates today’s culture and ponders how the country has spiraled in and out of wars. Also amidst the photographs is an infographic inviting the viewer to engage with the importance of both Lê’s work and their own experiences in America. It strives to offer conversations, and as Lê converses with the viewer through her photographs, she hopes viewers will converse with each other.