An-My Lê: Small Wars
EAST GALLERY
August 18 – November 4, 2007

An-My Lê. 29 Palms: Night Operations III. 2003–2004. Gelatin silver print. Collection Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, NM.


This exhibition comprises two photographic series by An-My Lê that explore the military conflicts that have framed the last half-century of American history: the war in Vietnam and the current war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The artist approaches these events obliquely. Instead of addressing her subject by creating reportage of actual shocking events, she photographs places where war is psychologically anticipated, processed, and relived. Her series Small Wars (1999–2002) depicts men who spend their weekends reenacting battles from the Vietnam War in the forests of Virginia. Lê’s current series, 29 Palms (2003-present), documents a military base of the same name. Located in the California desert, it is a base where soldiers train before being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. These dramatizations of war—one a reenactment, one a rehearsal—allow her to create a unique kind of war imagery: unexpected, removed, and revelatory.

Bellevue Art Museum and the Henry offer their members reciprocal admission in October: In celebration of An-My Lê: Small Wars and A Tapestry of Memories: The Art of Dinh Q. Lê (on view at the Bellevue Arts Museum through December 30), we are pleased to offer reciprocal admission to members of both museums during the month of October. Current membership card is required to take advantage of this reciprocal offer. (For more information about A Tapestry of Memories and other BAM exhibitions, visit www.bellevuearts.org.)




An-My Lê. Small Wars: Explosion. 1999–2002. Gelatin silver print. Courtesy of Murray Guy Gallery, New York.