Việt Lê is an artist, writer, and curator whose work over the past twenty years examines spiritualities, trauma, representation and sexualities with a focus on Southeast Asia and its diasporas, as well as intersectional coalitions.
Dr. Lê is the author of Return Engagements: Contemporary Art’s Traumas of Modernity and History in Sài Gòn and Phnom Penh (Duke University Press, June 2021). Arguing for an ethics of return, this book is a political-economic critique of the nation-state, wars then and now, representation, and global art markets. Lê has been published in positions: asia critique; Crab Orchard Review; American Quarterly; Amerasia Journal; Art Journal; Newsweek Asia; and the anthologies Writing from the Perfume River; Strange Cargo; The Spaces Between Us; Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art; among others.
Recent solo exhibitions include lovebang! (Kellogg University Art Gallery, Los Angeles 2016), vestige (H Gallery Bangkok 2015), tan nÁRT cõi lòng | heARTbreak! (Nhà Sàn Collective Hà Nội). Lê has presented his work at The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada; UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA; DoBaeBacSa Gallery, Seoul, Korea; Japan Foundation, Việt Nam; 1a Space, Hong Kong; Bangkok Art & Cultural Center (BACC), Thailand; Civitella Ranieri, Italy; Shanghai Biennale, China; Rio Gay Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; the Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., among other venues. White Gaze, an art book (poetry, images, performance) in collaboration with w/ Latipa [née Michelle Dizon] and Faith Wilding is published by Sming Sming Books & Objects and Candor Arts (February 2018; 2nd edition, Sming Sming Books, 2019) and is in the collections of the Whitney Museum, Victoria & Albert Musem and the library collections of Harvard, Brown, and Yale universities, among others.
Lê has received fellowships from Fulbright-Hays (Việt Nam), William Joiner Center, Civitella Ranieri Foundation (Italy), Fine Arts Work Center(USA), Center for Khmer Studies (Cambodia), Art Matters Foundation, International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden University, the Netherlands), Camargo Foundation (Cassis, France), and PEN Center USA.
Lê received his M.F.A. from the University of California, Irvine, where he has also taught Studio Art and Visual Culture courses. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and was as a postdoctoral fellow at Academia Sinica, Taipei. Lê is an Associate Professor in the History of Art and Visual CultureProgram, and Chair of Visual & Critical Studies Graduate Program at California College of the Arts. His writing has been translated into Chinese, German, Khmer and Vietnamese.
BFA, California State University, Fullerton; MFA, University of California, Irvine; MA, PhD, University of Southern California