An-My Lê: "Trap Rock"
Commissioned by Dia:Beacon, artist An-My Lê makes photographs of the Trap Rock basalt quarry on the Hudson River with her large-format camera.
Credits
Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Roger Phenix. Editor Mary Ann Toman. Artwork Courtesy: An-My Lê. Video: © 2011 Art21, Inc. All rights reserved.
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An-My Lê was born in 1960 in Saigon, Vietnam, and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She received a BAS and an MS from Stanford University in 1981 and 1985, and an MFA from Yale University in 1993. Documenting former sites of battle, military training exercises, and Vietnam War reenactments, An My Lê’s photography considers how conflict lingers in the landscape and how media shapes our perception of it.
Photographing Place
“I think that the people who work in the quarry are attracted to it for the same reasons that the men who willingly join the military are attracted to it too. This fascination with the gear, with working with nature, and a certain excitement that takes you away from the desk, from the office job.”
An-My Lê
Vietnam
Artist An-My Lê discusses her childhood, and how her background has influenced her worldview and her work.
An-My Lê
War and Aesthetics
Artist An-My Lê discusses her process of aestheticizing war, and the thinking behind her choice of black and white photography.
