From Our Archives: An-My Lê
Manning the Rail, USS Tortuga, Java Sea, 2010
This interview originally appeared in Musée Magazine Issue 24: Identity
ANDREA: Do you think that being a photographer or, generally, being an artist helped you with finding your identity?
AN-MY: I think my big revelation was returning to Vietnam early on to work on a project—and I think I was looking for a home—and realizing that actually my home was the art and that I was an artist before I was anything—American, Vietnamese, or Vietnamese American... but I think after finishing Events Ashore, it sort of gave me the confidence in exploring America. I think Events Ashore was about America, but I think it was also about my identity as a Vietnamese refugee and that experience with the military. In general, it’s really about being an American, or Vietnamese American, or whatever it is. That series carries quite a bit of optimism. I think that’s what a lot of my work does: there’s a push and pull. That’s the way I feel about the military as well. There are incredibly positive things as much as they made a lot of mistakes... it’s incredibly bureaucratic. I think that the portraits of the young women I made at the military are incredibly powerful. You know, I always loved Robert Frank’s The Americans, and Stephen Shore’s works or Joel Stern- feld, but I could never really identify with it. I think, in my head, I loved the works, and I believe in great pho- tography, and I teach it. But I think, in my heart, I could never really connect to it until now.
ANDREA: How so? Aesthetically? The experience?
AN-MY: The experience of the American road trip.
Migrant Workers Harvesting Asparagus, Mendota, California, 2019
ANDREA: Your work was partly influenced by the increased discriminatory and racist events happening in the United States in 2015. Today, with all the racial injustice that has been occurring in the country, your work seems more relevant than ever. How can you place your work within the current social and political climate, and do you see any direction in which it will evolve?
AN-MY: I have to thank Christopher Lew at the Whitney for having invited me to be part of the Whitney Biennial for 2017. In 2015, I started photographing on a Civil War film set, as well as photo- graphing the monuments that were being contested. So, starting in 2016, I showed him some of the work, and he invited me to be in the show. I think the Whitney is about what artists are making right now. They’re thinking about the zeitgeist and thinking about what’s going on. Feeling that sense of community with other artists gave a sense of urgency and a sense of importance to what I was making. So perhaps I was on track and I had looked at the right things, but I didn’t have the kind of urgency and the kind of push that came after I received the invitation. It shifted everything into the right gear, and I think I’ve maintained that momentum ever since. It helped me in this process of thinking about how my work could be engaging with the moment but also thinking historically. I think it pushed me to use all of my photographic skills. Everything I had learnt up until then: photographing actions, being in the moment, and also not being able to capture it all because the view camera just doesn’t do that. So you look for something that’s secondary that could be just as power- ful. It seemed that everything I had done up until now prepared me for art in general—emotionally, techni- cally, psychologically... I felt confident in who I was. So it’s been great. I mean, it’s been a crazy and upsetting time, but I feel very prepared for the moment.
Monument, Generals Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2017
ANDREA: Is the opportunity for inti- macy the reason why you pull back?
AN-MY: I think that people interpret intimacy in different ways. Some- times they equate that with a physical closeness. I think my images definitely have a kind of focus and mind- fulness that maybe you could equate with intimacy.
ANDREA: It’s interesting to me because I got the idea to do a series about intimacy, and the pulled-back nature seemed to only emphasize the intended feeling. I saw two people speaking, and their gestures with each other made their interaction very intimate even though they were far away.
AN-MY: Yeah, no, you’re so right. Around 2009, I made this picture of these two women fighting in Vietnam. It’s from really far back because I wanted to show the large field where they were stand- ing—they were fighting about the land—but it felt intimate to me even though they were tiny because of the gestures: one was pulling on the other.
ANDREA: I happen to like that! Who was it that said that very famous quote, “If you want to photograph something good, you should just get closer?”
AN-MY: Robert Capa said that—“if a picture’s not good it’s because you’re not close enough.”
Untitled, Mekong Delta, 1994
ANDREA: I mean, he has a point, but I don't agree. I like what you do actually. I feel more comfortable with it (laughs).
AN-MY: Yeah, I tend to stand back until it falls apart (laughs). Because, at one point when you step too far back, that idea that you were originally interested in gets diluted. The tension that you were originally interested in just gets lost.
Sniper II, 1999-2002
ANDREA: That’s very relevant to what’s happening right now, considering people can’t be less than six feet apart from each other! In comparison to your previous projects, Silent General is more open-ended. It ex- plores several aspects of contemporary American politics. How would you compare your approach between both?
AN-MY: I’m glad you think it’s more open-ended. When I start something, it’s always because I feel the possibility—I never really quite know what I’ll find. I think that the early work was in a way defined physically. You know, I was at Twentynine Palms and working with the Navy and such. I think, in Silent General, every- thing is up for grabs. The freedom is exhilarating, but there’s a lot of anxiety in terms of where to go, what to photograph—it’s always a big question. I think that, in a way, this project is like all the others put together. For example, I think the reenactors were like a kind of film set and, now, I use film sets here and there. Twentynine Palms was a kind of photographic training.
ANDREA: So what would you say is the story is behind the Silent General?
AN-MY: I think it’s a kind of reimagining of the American road trip.
US Customs and Border Protection Officer, Presidio-Ojinaga International Bridge, Presidio, Texas, 2019
ANDREA: I just find it so fascinat- ing how you showed that—how you came up with that idea and how you expressed it.
AN-MY: Yeah, at the same time it’s quite traditional... I’m interested in tradition. I think that, within tradition, one can build the original and innovate. The photographs—they’re all the same size, which is what people would try to avoid. They’re very conventional photographs. Yeah, but the idea isn’t!
The Boxers in front of the William Jackson statue in Lafayette Square in Washington DC.
ANDREA: Where do you go from here? Especially with the pandemic— what impact do you think it might have on your art?
AN-MY: I think that the current situation has made every- thing more precious and fragile. It’s made an argument for life—and that, I think, gives an incredible sense of urgency to everything. I think Black Lives Matter is a reminder that what we do is never enough. We have to keep working because it’s all a work in progress. I think, at this point, I have to weigh what’s possible versus what I’d like to be. But that’s never been a problem for me. I’ve always had to work with limitations—not being able to have access to everything and anything. I’ve never been able to control everything, so working with limitations is not new. I think a lot of artists feel this way. It’s making them feel like they matter, that they have a voice, that they should say something... there’s a sense of urgency there.
To read more, check out our 24th Issue, Identity
