Khánh H. Lê

May 2011

Know Place

Khánh Lê often thinks about his hyphenated identity, as a Vietnamese-American, in the context of a landscape, a thing of earthly and natural status. When people ask him what Vietnam is like, it is almost as though they believe the landscape is permanent and non-changing, as if it is frozen in time. Conception of “real” and “unreal” is one of the larger issues that Le deals with in his work. He uses real images from Vietnam, but reconfigures them to represent an unreal place. Just like his images, Le knows the place but it is no place that can really be found.