Patient Admission, US Naval Hospital Ship Mercy, Vietnam

2010 - Photography (Photography)

40H x 56.5 inches

An-My LE

location: New York, New York
year born: 1960
gender: female
home town: Saigon, Vietnam

The print Patient Admission, US Naval Hospital Ship Mercy, Vietnam (2010) features an Asian Buddhist monk and an American Navy Solider on board the Mercy ship –one of the two dedicated hospital ships of the United States Navy– sitting upright in their chairs and adopting the same posture. In the background, the steel pillars creates a division of space implying a separation the two men according to their geographic regions of origin or residence, their vocations, their ethnicities, and their attitudes toward war. Yet, the mirrored body language of the two characters also suggests their reconciliation into a dialogue perhaps characterized by the protagonists’ physical and spiritual conversation. This photograph translates the artist’s ambivalence about military action. But this ambivalence becomes intrinsically complicated through LÊ’s rich use of color renders the kaleidoscopic shifts of terrain and sudden intrusion of beauty, atmosphere and psychology within her observations if the military at work. The heightened aesthetics qualities become unsettling, precisely because they counter the horrific violence that we expect from wartime imagery, as well as our collective historical memory of such extreme traumas as the Vietnam War. LÊ’s image, by extension, adds a disconcertingly glossy veneer to a moment of stasis, as if to suggest that war and military intervention are defined just as much by the quiet moments in between battle as they are by violence itself.


An-My LÊ arrived in the United Sates in 1975 as a war refugee from Vietnam. LÊ is a prolific photographer whose work blurs presumed boundaries between documentary and portrait photography. Her more recent work displays a rich use of color and an aesthetic beauty that belies the horrific imagery associated with violent combat. In such, her photographs also challenge the limits of reportage by suggesting that all representation is, on some level, fabricated for the camera and that the underlying narratives that we as viewers presume are never exactly what they seem.


Colors:



Related works of genres: » 21st-century american photographers  
» see more

Forest Gathering N.2
© » KADIST

Gregory Crewdson

2005

Forest Gathering N.2 is part of the series of photographs Beneath the Roses (2003-2005) where anonymous townscapes, forest clearings and broad, desolate streets are revealed as sites of mystery and wonder; similarly, ostensibly banal interiors become the staging grounds for strange human scenarios...

Untitled (Men)
© » KADIST

Matt Lipps

2011

In the series Horizons (2010), Lipps uses appropriation to riff on Modernism’s fascination with abstract form...

Untitled 3737 and Untitled 5157
© » KADIST

Todd Hido

2005

The two pieces in the Kadist Collection depict foggy landscapes, one at dawn, the other at nighttime...

Diego Rivera Mural: Billionaires Club; Ministry of Education, Mexico D.F., Third Gallery
© » KADIST

Tina Modotti

1927

Modotti’s Diego Rivera Mural: Billionaires Club; Ministry of Education, Mexico D...

Fedex® 10kg Box 2006 FedEx 149801 REV 9/06 MP, Standard Overnight, Los Angeles-San Francisco, trk#800983717740, December 18-19, 2012, International Priority, San Francisco-Beijing, trk# 775046700145, October 27-November 5, 2021
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2012

Constructed out of metal or glass to mirror the size of FedEx shipping boxes, and to fit securely inside, Walead Beshty’s FedEx works are then shipped, accruing cracks, chips, scrapes, and bruises along the way to their destination...

The American War
© » KADIST

Harrell Fletcher

2005

The American War , which takes its title from the Vietnamese term for what Americans call the Vietnam War, has toured the United States extensively with the goal of presenting a Vietnamese perspective of that history...

I Am A Man
© » KADIST

Hank Willis Thomas

2013

The image is borrowed from protests during Civil Rights where African Americans in the south would carry signs with the same message to assert their rights against segregation and racism...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

An-My Lê on Vietnam, the Chaos of War, and the Tangibility of Memory
© » APERTURE

An-My LE

For the past two decades, An-My Lê has used photography to examine her personal history and the legacies of US military power, probing the tension between experience and storytelling....

Diego Rivera Mural: Billionaires Club; Ministry of Education, Mexico D.F., Third Gallery
© » KADIST

Tina Modotti

1927

Modotti’s Diego Rivera Mural: Billionaires Club; Ministry of Education, Mexico D...

Fedex® 10kg Box 2006 FedEx 149801 REV 9/06 MP, Standard Overnight, Los Angeles-San Francisco, trk#800983717740, December 18-19, 2012, International Priority, San Francisco-Beijing, trk# 775046700145, October 27-November 5, 2021
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2012

Constructed out of metal or glass to mirror the size of FedEx shipping boxes, and to fit securely inside, Walead Beshty’s FedEx works are then shipped, accruing cracks, chips, scrapes, and bruises along the way to their destination...

Bread and Roses
© » KADIST

Hank Willis Thomas

2012

Bread and Roses takes its name from a phrase famously used on picket signs and immortalized by the poet James Oppenheim in 1911...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

Untitled
© » KADIST

Wade Guyton

2016

This untitled print by Wade Guyton depicts an iteration of elements that are characteristic of the artist’s work...

A new wave: spate of UK exhibitions signal growing recognition for Inuit and Sámi art
© » THEARTNEWSPER

A new wave: spate of UK exhibitions signal growing recognition for Inuit and Sámi art Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Exhibitions news A new wave: spate of UK exhibitions signal growing recognition for Inuit and Sámi art Shows in London, Southampton and St Ives are introducing a wider audience to the work of artists from the far north Alexander Morrison 7 February 2024 Share Pia Arke's Krabbe 1906/Jensen 1947 is an example of how the artist blended “the personal with the political” Courtesy and © Pia Arke Estate Two years on from the last major milestone, the push for representation of art from the far north appears to have reached another...

Frank Gehry-Designed Handbags Unveiled at Art Basel Miami Beach
© » ARTNEWS

Frank Gehry-Designed Handbags Debut at Art Basel Miami Beach – ARTnews.com Skip to main content By Joelle Diderich for WWD Plus Icon Joelle Diderich for WWD View All December 11, 2023 12:09pm Frank Gehry's limited-edition handbag designs for Louis Vuitton...

Edgar Orlaineta Part 2
© » KADIST

Edgar Orlaineta presents ‘Solar Do (It Yourself) Nothing Toy, After Charles Eames’ (2011), part of the Kadist collection, and ‘Criollo’ (2006)...

Related works from the » 2010's created around » New York, New York  
» see more

Nothing New
© » KADIST

Oded Hirsch

2012

Oded Hirsch’s video work Nothing New (2012) utilizes seemingly absurdist tropes to raise more trenchant questions about communal action and collective identity in modern day Israel...

La Ligne du Temps
© » KADIST

Valeska Soares

2012

Relying on repetition and repurposed materials, Soares works to interrogate time—its measurement, its passing, and its meaning...

Black Hands, White Cotton
© » KADIST

Hank Willis Thomas

2014

Shot in black and white and printed on a glittery carborundum surface, Black Hands, White Cotton both confronts and abstracts the subject of its title...

Other works by: » An-My LE  
» see more

An-My Lê on Vietnam, the Chaos of War, and the Tangibility of Memory
© » APERTURE

An-My LE

For the past two decades, An-My Lê has used photography to examine her personal history and the legacies of US military power, probing the tension between experience and storytelling....

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

What Collectors Need to Know about Art Shipping - via Artsy
© » LARRY'S LIST

The world of art shipping is wide-ranging: One can ship art through the postal system or under armed guard....

Jota Mombaça: THE SINKING SHIP/PROSPERITY, artist publication
© » KADIST

Jota Mombaça: THE SINKING SHIP/PROSPERITY , artist publication The publication includes Mombaça’s poems and drawings, an experimental essay by art critic and philosopher Darla Migan, and production stills and installation photos from the exhibition THE SINKING SHIP/PROSPERITY...