Dinh Q. Lê: Survey 1998 - 2023

August 27, 2024 - October 11, 2024

Shoshana Wayne Gallery is pleased to present Dinh Q. Lê: Survey 1998-2023.  This is the artist’s eighth solo exhibition with the gallery, and the gallery’s first posthumous showing of Lê’s work. Survey 1998-2023 serves as a memorial exhibition celebrating Dinh’s life and legacy. The exhibition will be on view August 27th through October 11th. 

Survey 1998-2023 traces the arc of Lê’s career, beginning with works shown in 1998 at the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies and concluding with the artist’s most recent and final works from the Cambodia-Reamker series. Bringing together work from Lê’s series: From Vietnam to Hollywood, Persistence of Memory, A Quagmire This Time, Empire, and Cambodia Reamker, the exhibition foregrounds the artist’s investigations into memory and homeland. It also honors the relationship Dinh had with Shoshana Wayne Gallery, presenting previously exhibited works alongside pieces never shown by the gallery.  

The main exhibition space features a selection of photo-weaving works by Lê, exemplifying the work he was known for. Inspired by a traditional Vietnamese matmaking technique taught to the artist by his aunt, Lê’s woven works exposed contradictions between American depictions and memories of the Vietnam War, and the lived realities of those who experienced it. By uniting disparate images, Dinh exposed western audiences to the reality of the war (called the American War by the Vietnamese people) and the long shadow it cast over his homeland. Hollywood productions, victims of the Khmer Rouge, and archival images of war are some of the many images Lê mined to force viewers to confront these truths.    

Survey 1998-2023 is the first exhibition of Lê’s work following his death in April 2024, and it showcases a decades-long relationships between the gallery and the artist. This relationship was cultivated by trips to Vietnam over the years, where Lê shared the beauty and culture of his home country, and a mutual collaboration to found San Art. Dinh was not only an incredible artist, but also an incredible human being. His absence is felt by everyone who had the privilege of knowing him.  

Dinh Q. Lê has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally at prestigious venues including: Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan; Mori Art Museum, Japan; dOCUMENTA (13), Kassell, Germany; and the Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy. Solo exhibitions include: Projects 93: Dinh Q. Lê (MoMA, New York), True Journey Is Return (San Jose Museum of Art, California), Photographing the thread of memory (Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France), and Memory for Tomorrow (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan). His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Fukuoka Asian Art and the Mori Museum in Japan; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Los Angeles County Museum of Art amongst many others. Lê has been the recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Residency Award and the Prince Claus Fund for Cultural and Development amongst others.