Dinh Q. Lê Dinh Q Lê (b. 1968) and his family fled their South Vietnamese village near the boarder with Cambodia when he was ten years old. They settled in Los Angeles. Dinh Q. Lê, Untitled (Tom Cruise & Willam Dafoe, Born on the 4th of July/Highway 1), 2000
In art school, he began using a grass-mat weaving technique that he learned from his aunt to combine images and integrate his Eastern and Western experience. Dinh Q. Lê, Untitled (Tom Cruise & Willam Dafoe, Born on the 4th of July/Highway 1), 2000
He cuts photographs and images that he appropriates from Hollywood movies and news sources into strips so that two or more images woven into the final work. Lê stated in an interview: "By interweaving self-portraits and historical and mythological images from both cultures, I dissect existing histories to create new mythologies." Dinh Q. Lê, Untitled (Tom Cruise & Willam Dafoe, Born on the 4th of July/Highway 1), 2000
Dinh Q. Lê, Untitled (Tom Cruise & Willam Dafoe, Born on the 4th of July/Highway 1), 2000 In this case, he appropriated an image of Tom Cruse and William Dafoe from the movie about the Vietnam War, Born on the 4th of July. Tom Cruse and Willam Dafoe in Born on the 4th of July (1989).
(Nick) Ut Cong Huynh, Trangbang, South Vietnam, 8 June 1972 (Nick) Ut Cong Huynh, Trangbang, South Vietnam, 8 June 1972. Phan Thi Kim Phuc (center) flees from the scene where South Vietnamese planes have mistakenly dropped napalm. Photo Credit: (Nick) Ut Cong Huynh, Vietnam, The Associated Press. Dinh Q. Lê, Untitled (Tom Cruise & Willam Dafoe, Born on the 4th of July/Highway 1), 2000
Not all of the strips are the same size. Why did he vary their width? Dinh Q. Lê, Untitled (Tom Cruise & Willam Dafoe, Born on the 4th of July/Highway 1), 2000
Dinh Q. Lê, Untitled (boy), 2007, c-print and linen tape, 40 1/2 x 30 inches
Angkor Wat is a Hindu temple complex at Angkor, Cambodia, built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as part of his capital city. Dinh Q. Lê, Untitled (boy), 2007, c-print and linen tape, 40 1/2 x 30 inches
Angkor Wat sculptural niche Dinh Q. Lê, Untitled (boy), 2007, c-print and linen tape, 40 1/2 x 30 inches
In 1975, when Lê was 7 years old, the Tuol Svay Prey High School was taken over by Pol Pot's security forces in Cambodia and turned into a prison known as Security Prison 21. It soon became the largest center of detention and torture in the country. It is now a museum. Dinh Q. Lê, Untitled (boy), 2007, c-print and linen tape, 40 1/2 x 30 inches
In a period of three years and eight months, Pol Pot and his Kehmer Rouge insurgency arrested and eventually executed almost everyone suspected of connections with the former government of Cambodia or with foreign governments, as well as professionals, intellectuals, and ethnic minorities. Eventually they killed 1.7 million of their own citizens (out of a total population of just 7 million people) as they consolidated power from 1975 to 1979. The government systematically photographed of all of the individuals they arrested and executed. These photographs fill the former high school, now a museum. Dinh Q. Lê, Untitled (boy), 2007, c-print and linen tape, 40 1/2 x 30 inches
Dinh Q. Lê, Untitled (boy), 2007, c-print and linen tape, 40 1/2 x 30 inches
Dinh Q. Lê, Untitled (boy), 2007, c-print and linen tape, 40 1/2 x 30 inches
Dinh Q. Lê, Young Girl, 1996, Woven C-print and linen tape, 34 1/2" x 49 1/2"