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10/9/2004

Elizabeth Gill Lui

White Room, Hollywood

Building Diplomacy

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 11
6:00- 8:00 PM

The most obvious manifestation of America’s influence around the world can be seen in her foreign embassy buildings. Photographer Elizabeth Gill Lui has circled the globe these last 3 years, exploring a vast range of our diplomatic structures. Her large format, formal color photographs examine the intricate architectural details of these chanceries. Each picture subtly conveys not only a sense of America’s power, prestige and influence on the world stage, but also the new realities of international interdependence.

American embassies are an eclectic mix of architectural style. Lui's grand and stately images examine, in minute detail, the political statement each building makes on foreign soil. Some embassies inhabit historic structures that were given to American in exchange for past debts, often incurred from WWII. Others incorporate design motifs reflective of the host country, in respect to indigenous cultural architecture. Only our embassy in Canberra, Australia was designed and built in the classical style of American architecture. Lui's photographs show the cultural and architectural diversity that still exists in this shrinking world.

White Room Gallery is proud to exhibit this intriguing new body of work, opening, appropriately enough, on 9/11. The symbolism is obvious. American embassies in Kenya, Tanzania, and Lebanon have recently been attacked. Each is a direct assault on America’s foreign policy. Lui's photographs are reminders of the essential role America plays in the world. More of her work can be found in her new book: “Building Diplomacy: The Architecture of American Embassies”, published by Cornell University Press.


WHITE ROOM GALLERY
8810 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Ph: 310 859-2402 Fax: 310 859-0197

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