An-My Le
dal 25/4/2008 al 25/5/2008
Segnalato da
25/4/2008
An-My Le
Murray Guy Gallery, New York
Shot in coastal waters and regions from Iraq to Antarctica, the artist's latest series of photographs examine intersecting themes of scientific exploration, military power, environmental crises, fantasies of empire and the vast ungovernable oceans that connect nations and continents.
Shot in coastal waters and regions from Iraq to Antarctica, An-My Lê's
latest series of photographs examine intersecting themes of scientific
exploration, military power, environmental crises, fantasies of empire
and the vast ungovernable oceans that connect nations and continents.
In a continuing practice that explores photography's ability to
describe natural forces and geography as backdrops against which human
ambitions are weighed and scrutinized, Lê turns toward the seascape as
both a historical tradition in visual art and as the site of a wide
range of contemporary issues and anxieties.
"Landscape is truth" muses a highly trained ex-soldier in Don
Delillo's "Running Dog" (1978).
Lê's various terrains are rife with physical obstacles and
incontrovertible political realities. The photographs offer a
complication of truths, both human and epic in scale: a soldier stands
watch over oil platforms off the coast of Iraq scanning the North
Arabian sea for potential threats. In Antarctica, the only continent
never to have hosted a war, a group of recently deposited scientists
look on as Oden, a Norwegian icebreaker makes a slow departure and in
Australia an exhausted unit of U.S. Marines pauses to witness dusk in
an emerald forest. While echoing traditions ranging from 19th century
romantic painting to contemporary social landscape photography, Lê
makes dynamic speculations on our capacity to occupy spaces as we
attempt to control the potentially uncontrollable while pondering the
infinite.
Produced between 2005 and 2008, the photographs in "Events Ashore"
were made during visits to Australia, Japan, Antarctica, Kuwait, Iraq
and California.
Born in Saigon in 1960, An-My Lê came to the United States as a
political refugee in 1975. She received an MS at Stanford University
and an MFA in Photography at Yale University. She is the subject of a
traveling exhibition entitled "Small Wars" currently on view at
SFMoMA, San Francisco and her series "Trap Rock" 2006-7 commissioned
by the DIA Foundation is on view at Dia: Beacon through September 2008.
This is An-My Lê's second solo show at Murray Guy. She lives and works
in New York.
opening April 26, 2008
Murray Guy Gallery
453 West 17 Street - New York
Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday 10am-6pm.
Free admission