From Father to Son: A Rite of Passage, 2007, 10’
San Art, Vietnam
For the first time, Vietnam takes part of Art in the Auditorium with the unique video of Din Q. Lê, which explores the dialogue between father and son, generational gap and cinema’s perspective on Vietnam War. Text by curator Zoe Butt:
Dinh Q Lê is one of Vietnam’s most established artists from a generation that has witnessed and endured great political, social and cultural upheaval. Born in Ha Tien on the southern border between Cambodia and Vietnam, Lê’s family took to the sea in fear of the Khmer Rouge, spending his childhood in the USA. He received his BA in Art (Studio) at UC Santa Barbara in 1989 and his MFA in Photography and Related Media at The School of Visual Arts in New York City in 1992. Learning his country’s ‘history’ through the eyes of foreigners whose investment in the Vietnam War is fraught with numerous political agendas, Lê returned to Vietnam in 1993, determined to find the voice of his own people. Lê’s artistic practice is diverse. His early woven photographs have referred to the thousands killed under Pol Pot in Cambodia; the plight of the innumerable ‘boat people’ and their desperate search for safety and validity; or the morphing of filmic and documentary footage into compelling imagery that challenges the voice of popular media and its construction of ‘truth’. His sculptural installations and social ‘interactions’ have often drawn attention to the smaller, often overlooked consequences of everyday life in Vietnam, such as children born with deformity as a result of Agent Orange with Lê creating his own form of shrine to these souls who live a life of pain. Examining the influence of American culture in its stereotyping of contemporary Vietnam, much of Lê’s ongoing work (most recently installation and the moving image) juxtaposes the lived and mediated experiences of the social condition of Vietnam – its contradictions, insecurities and historical anomalies, but most importantly he has endeavored to illustrate the complex flowering of human persistence and resilience in the face of a powerless urge to survive.
Lê’s work has combed the little known historical facts of the complex confluence of war and the extreme assumptions that ensue in a government’s maneuvering of a dominant national psyche that limits a community’s understanding of its own past. Drawn to the issue of land rights, nationhood and questions of sovereignty, issues that are laced with varied biblical, mythical, religious or cultural metaphors that often persist in Vietnamese society today, Lê’s oeuvre is one of the most outspoken artistic voices that has consistently drawn attention to the reality of contemporary Vietnam.
‘From Father to Son’ cunningly illustrates the complex familial stereotype between fathers and sons, between ideas of nation and subject and the popular circulation, and indeed exacerbation of masculinity in Hollywood culture. Cutting film excerpts of Charlie Sheen in ‘Platoon’ and his father, Martin Sheen in ‘Apocalypse Now’, Le cuts the screen in half. In one half, Charlie Sheen watches his father (in the other half) deal with the posttraumatic trauma of the Vietnam War. In a desire to see his father reclaim his sense of self, Charlie is sent to the frontline in an effort to better understand his father’s terror. ‘From Father to Son’ ends in an escalation of violence and war, where human suffering and anger relentlessly continues. Like father, like son, Charlie too becomes a murderer and thus Le asks, from where do we redeem ourselves in our understanding of history? To what realm of knowledge and experience do we take heart that the human condition can learn from its mistakes? Le’s manipulation of the filmic image into his own fictional tale is a deliberate ploy, asking us as viewers to remain critically aware of the role of popular culture in perpetuating cultural and social stereotype.
Dinh Q. Lê (Ha-Tienm, 1968). He received his BA in Art Studio at UC Santa Barbara in 1989 and his MFA in Photography and Related Media at The School of Visual Arts in New York City in 1992. Lê’s work has been exhibited worldwide. In 1993, Lê returned to Vietnam for the first time and in 1996 Lê decided to settle down in Ho Chi Minh City. His work is in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Portland Art Museum; The Bronx Museum, New York and The Israel Museum, amongst others. Besides being an artist, Lê also co-founded the Vietnam Foundation for the Arts (VNFA), based between Los Angeles and Ho Chi Minh City - an organization that supports Vietnamese artists and promotes artistic exchange between cultural workers from Vietnam and around the world. With funding from VNFA, Lê and three other artists co-founded San Art, the first not-for-profit contemporary art space and reading room in Ho Chi Minh City. He is currently a member of the peer committee for Art Network Asia and a member of the Asia Society’s international council.