?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
DINH Q. LÊ (1968-2024)
Self Portrait #5 (Portraying a White God Series). Cut and woven chromogenic prints, mounted to cotton canvas. 990x749 mm; 39x29½ inches. 1989.
Provenance: acquired from Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, New York; private collection, New York (1999).
Rooted in Oriental & Occidental histories, Dinh Q. Lê's Portraying a White God Series are composite self-portraits of the artist in biblical scenes. The series acts as a critique of critical whiteness theory, Western religiosity, and performance. The crucifixion scene places Lê at the intersection of the historiography of Christianity. Lê learned his signature woven technique in homage to his aunt, who wove grass mats, linking heritage to his socially informed practice.
Born in Ha-Tien, Vietnam, Lê worked in photography, film, and installation while examining the Vietnamese diaspora. His family remained in the country after the end of the Cambodian-Vietnamese War, through the rise of the Khmer Rouge regime and the systemic erasure of South Vietnamese culture. In 1978, Lê's family settled in California's Simi Valley, where he attended the University of California, Santa Barbara as an undergraduate, later attending the School of Visual Arts in New York for his MFA.
Lê's relationship with East and West was tenuous. He never felt accepted in the West and returned to live in Ho Chi Minh City in 1994 to reacclimate himself to Vietnamese culture and to find his heritage.
His work was included in the 2003 Venice Biennale, Documenta 13 in 2012, and editions of the Singapore Biennale and the Gwangju Biennale. Lê participated in the 2013 Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; the 2009 Biennale Cuveê, OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria; the 2008 Singapore Biennale, Singapore; and the 2006 Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia. His work has been exhibited at major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; MoMA PS1, New York, NY; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Tufts University Art Gallery, MA; and the Asia Society, NY; among many others.
