20 January 2015
Born in Saigon in 1960, An-My Lê left Vietnam in 1975 to move with her family to the United States as political refugees. After graduating with an MFA in photography from Yale, she immediately made war the focus of her work: her first book Small Wars evoked the conflict in Vietnam by juxtaposing images of her homeland with pictures of re-enactments of wartime operations in the woods of Virginia and photos of military exercises carried out in the Californian desert. Her new publication Events Ashore documents actions by American forces all over the world: her meticulous tableaux depict navy ships, humanitarian missions and scientific expeditions, taking an approach that neither condemns nor commends the most powerful army in the world, but tries to grasp the significance and impact of this constant military activity. The volume is published by Aperture.
An-My Lê, Portrait Studio, USS Ronald Reagan, North Arabian Gulf, 2009. © An-My Lê.
An-My Lê, Marine Corps Martial Art Program, Bundase Training Camp, Ghana, 2010. © An-My Lê.
An-My Lê, Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion on Liberty, Moroni Beach, Comoros, 2009. © An-My Lê.
An-My Lê, Visit, Board, Search and Seizure Operations, USS Arleigh Burke, Port Louis, Mauritius, 2009. © An-My Lê.
An-My Lê, Crew from USS Prebble on Liberty, Bamboo 2 Bar, Da Nang, Vietnam, 2011. © An-My Lê.
An-My Lê, Offload, LCACs and Tank, California, 2006. © An-My Lê.
An-My Lê, Demonstration of Puma AE Unmanned Aircraft System, HTMS Nareasuan, Sattahip Naval Taining Center, Thailand, 2010. © An-My Lê.
An-My Lê, Line Shack Supervisor for EA-6B Prowler, USS Ronald Regan, North arabian Gulf, 2009. © An-My Lê.
An-My Lê, Manning the Rail, USS Tortuga, Java Sea, 2010. © An-My Lê.
An-My Lê, Amphibious Landing, Gulf of Thailand, 2010. © An-My Lê.
