Dinh Q. Lê - Biography | 10 Chancery Lane Gallery

Dinh Q. Lê (1968-2024, Vietnam)

Vietnamese-American artist Dinh Q. Lê was a distinguished artist in photography, film and installation and is considered one of Vietnam's most significant contemporary artists. His practice challenges how our memories are recalled and how society archives the evidence of human suffering. Le's work elucidates his commitment to the artistic process as a means of excavating history and the uncovering and revealing of alternate ideas of loss and redemption. As a child of the war and a migrant to the USA, his work was shaped by the lens of finding his identity through his individual and his country’s collective experience. Lê returned to Vietnam in 1993 and stayed until the sudden end of his life in 2024. Lê’s series of photo-weavings was initiated by his search of his real and imagined memories of the Vietnam war. His complex tapestries intertwine Vietnam movie images, found photographs and Buddhist icons to weave together his personal memories and how the war was perceived by the outside.

The weaving process of the artist’s photographic constructions physically intertwine narratives to reiterate the dichotomous nature of cultural memory. Dinh Q. Lê was born in 1968 in Ha Tien, a Vietnamese town near the Cambodia border. Soon after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978, the Lê family immigrated to the United States. After receiving a BFA from UC Santa Barbara, Lê began his first photo-weavings using a traditional technique he learned from his aunt. Lê participated in the 2013 Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; the 2009 Biennale Cuveê in Linz, Austria; the 2008 Singapore Biennale; and the 2006 Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, in Brisbane, Australia.

His work has been exhibited at major institutions and international exhibitions including the Museum of Modern Art, NY; Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, PA; MoMA PS1, New York, NY; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Tufts University Art Gallery, Boston, MA; and the Asia Society, New York, NY, among many others. In 2010, he was awarded the Prince Claus Award for his outstanding contribution to cultural exchange. Lê co-founded Sàn Art, an independent exhibition space with curatorial and artist residency programs in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.