Conversation and Reception
February 27, 3 p.m., at the gallery Los Angeles photography curator Sam Lee speaks on “War and Vietnamese Photography.” The talk is followed by a community discussion with curators Christopher Rauschenberg and Stephanie Snyder.

An-My Lê, 29 Palms
An-My Lê's photographs and films examine the impact, consequences, and representation of war through the violent transformation of the natural landscape into real and fictional battlefields. Lê explores the disjunction between wars as historical events and the ubiquitous portrayal of war in contemporary entertainment, politics, and collective consciousness. Lê's 29 Palms (2003-04) documents United States Marines conducting war exercises in a virtual Middle East constructed in the California desert. Lê captures the Marines rehearsing a fictional war, and playing the role of their adversaries.  

An-My Lê was born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1960. Lê fled Vietnam with her family as a teenager in 1975, eventually settling in the United States as a political refugee. Lê received BAS and MS degrees in biology from Stanford University (1981, 1985) and an MFA from Yale University (1993).