An-My Lê: On Contested Terrain Opening

December 3, 2021–March 27, 2022
Baker/Rowland Galleries

An-My Lê: On Contested Terrain is the first comprehensive survey of the work of celebrated photographer An-My Lê (American, b. Vietnam, 1960). The nationally touring exhibition features large-format black-and-white and color photographs from across Lê’s career, which she has dedicated to exploring the complexity that envelops war.

Born in Saigon, Lê was a teenager when the U.S. military evacuated her and her family in the final year of the Vietnam War, in 1975. For the past thirty years, she has been photographing the peripheries of battle: the training, reenactments, and symbols that further extend and entrench the mark of conflict on the people and places involved.

Using a 5 by 7–inch view camera, Lê creates sweeping views that allow us to consider the expansive reach of armed combat, across space and time. Lê draws on the traditions of survey photography and classical painting to create evocative images that look upon the landscape as a witness to history.

Image: An-My Lê (American, b. Vietnam, 1960), Untitled, Ho Chi Minh City, 1995. Gelatin silver print, 15¾ x 22½ in., courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery © An-My Lê