Dinh Q. Lê: True Journey Is Return

Artist Dinh Q. Lê, (1968-2024)

SJMA was honored to present his work to the Bay Area in the largest solo exhibition in the United States in more than a decade. Dinh Q. Lê: True Journey is Return (September 14, 2018–April 7, 2019) included five major video and photography installations that entwined rarely heard narratives of war and migration from people in North Viêtnam, the Viêtnamese diaspora, and refugees who, like Lê, have returned to live in their home country. Through these obscure stories assembled through collections of found photographs, artists’ war sketches, and oral histories, Lê presented a multifaceted story about Viêtnamese life before, during, and after the Viêtnam War. In the process, he questioned the viability of collective memory and revealed the effects of trauma on the cultural imagination. This fully illustrated catalog accompanied the exhibition and was published by the Museum.

Published by SJMA, the fully illustrated exhibition catalog includes documentation of the exhibition; a transcribed conversation between Dinh Q. Lê and Moira Roth, Trefethen Professor Emerita of Art History, Mills College, Oakland; and essays by Rory Padeken, SJMA associate curator and curator of the exhibition; Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde, associate professor of Asian American Studies, University of California, Davis; and Nora A. Taylor, Alsdorf Professor of South and Southeast Asian Art History, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. (Sept. 14, 2018-April 7, 2019)