No entrance fee
Artist, academic and curator Việt Lê will discuss his recent creative and critical projects. Lê traces the continuing wars overseas, on U.S. streets, and the 40th anniversary of the military engagements in Southeast Asia (2015). Giving a brief survey of his projects (art, curatorial, and academic) within the past two years, Lê makes a case for “return engagements” as a frame to reconsider loss, (queer) longing and spiritualities.
Việt Lê is an artist, curator and academic whose work focuses on popular culture, sexuality, and the traumas of history and modernity.
He is an Assistant Professor in Visual Studies at California College of the Arts (San Francisco | Oakland). He has been published in positions: asia critique; Crab Orchard Review; American Quarterly; Amerasia Journal; Art Journal; and the anthologies Writing from the Perfume River; Strange Cargo; The Spaces Between Us; Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art; among others.
Recent solo exhibitions include lovebang! (Kellogg University Art Gallery, Los Angeles 2016), vestige (H Gallery Bangkok 2015), tan nÁRT cõi lòng | heARTbreak! (Nhà Sàn Collective Hà Nội). Lê has presented his work at The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada; UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA; DoBaeBacSa Gallery, Seoul, Korea; Japan Foundation, Việt Nam; 1a Space, Hong Kong; Bangkok Art & Cultural Center (BACC), Thailand; Civitella Ranieri, Italy; Shanghai Biennale, China; Rio Gay Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; among other venues. Lê curated Miss Saigon with the Wind (Highways, Santa Monica, 2005) and Charlie Don’t Surf!(Centre A, Vancouver, BC, 2005); and co-curated humor us(with Leta Ming and Yong Soon Min; Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, LA, CA, 2008), transPOP: Korea Việt Nam Remix (with Yong Soon Min; Seoul, Sài Gòn, Irvine, San Francisco, 2008-09), and Love in the Time of War (UC Santa Barbara and SF Camerawork). vietle.net
Lê has received fellowships from Fulbright-Hays (Việt Nam), William Joiner Center, Civitella Ranieri Foundation (Italy), Fine Arts Work Center (USA), Center for Khmer Studies (Cambodia), Art Matters Foundation, International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden University, the Netherlands), Camargo Foundation (Cassis, France), and PEN Center USA. Lê received his M.F.A. from the University of California, Irvine, where he has also taught Studio Art and Visual Culture courses. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Southern California (Department of American Studies & Ethnicity).
