From Vietnam to Hollywood: DINH Q. LÊ

10 Chancery Lane Gallery has the great honour of presenting artworks by Dinh Q. Lê. Lê weaves his works as one would weave a traditional grass matt in Vietnam, however the strips are photographs and the result is several layers of imagery that play tricks on the eye and at once stir emotions of happiness and sorrow like a beautiful colorful dream that changes into the nightmarish pictures of the Vietnam war. The images play a sort of hide and seek on the patterns and the viewer needs time before the intricate composition of imagery on the basket-woven pattern can be fully appreciated. The success of his works is that it leaves the viewer in a state of searching the cinematic montage coming in and out of the images that fade into one another. Lê’s unique woven-photographs have been highlighted by Francesco Bonami, curator of the 50th Venice Biennale, who dedicated an entire room to Lê’s works in the Italian Pavillion in 2003.