Light Work Announces New Exhibition
Binh Danh — One Week's Dead
August 14-October 23, 2007
Gallery Reception: September 6, 2007 5-8 pm, Artist Lecture: 6:30 pm
Light Work is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition One Week's Dead featuring the work of Vietnamese-American photographer Binh Danh. Artist Binh Danh has quietly gained recognition on the international art scene for his Vietnam War-inspired work.
This exhibition features his most recognizable work, comprising appropriated war images that are printed directly onto leaves or grass, a process Danh invented while in college. On his first trip to Vietnam since his family immigrated to the United States, Danh was confronted by the remains of the war, such as bomb craters that had been converted into rice paddies, and he observed that memories of the war's devastation had become part of daily life. It was this experience that inspired him to create chlorophyll prints of found images from the Vietnam War with tropical leaves, sharing, in his words, the "epiphany that the memory of those people and events will reverberate forever through the country's landscape."
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Binh Danh—Dead son #7 |
Of his work, Danh states, "Much of my research has explored my own personal history and has become a way of visually and physically recollecting my family's history and honoring their collective memory." These concepts are very real with regard to any culture that has immigrated to the United States, looking at the stories families tell and the disconnected feeling experienced by the second generation. Danh was born in Vietnam in 1977. He received a B.F.A. degree from San Jose State University and an M.F.A. degree from Stanford University. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally, including the George Eastman House in Rochester, the Asia Society Museum in New York City, the University of Hawaii Art Museum and the Haines Gallery in San Francisco. He lives and works in San Jose, Calif. He participated in Light Work's Artist-in-Residence program in 2005. His work can be seen at www.binhdanh.com.
Light Work will host a gallery reception on Sept. 6, from 5-8 p.m. to celebrate this exhibition. In addition, at 6:30 p.m., Danh will give an artist lecture about his work and will discuss how his work relates to the Syracuse Symposium theme of justice. This lecture and reception will be the kickoff event for the 2007 Syracuse Symposium. The artist lecture is supported by Syracuse Symposium, a semester-long intellectual and artistic festival celebrating interdisciplinary thinking, imagining and creating, presented by The College of Arts and Sciences to the entire Syracuse community.
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Binh Danh—Dead son #9 |
In addition, Light Work will feature an exhibition titled The Lost Photos of Vietnam, featuring the photographs of Al Fasoldt. During the Vietnam War, Fasoldt was a photographer for Stars & Stripes. When he left Vietnam to come home, he left his negatives behind and brought a few 8x10" prints and contact sheets of his work. Since then, the Pentagon has ordered all negatives of Stars & Stripes photographers be destroyed. Over the past few years, Fasoldt has been working to repair the prints and contact sheets he brought home years ago, using them to make prints of his Vietnam War images for exhibition. Also on view at this time is the Light Work Grants exhibition, featuring the work of the 2007 grant recipients—Brantley Carroll, Ella Gant and David Moore. Gallery hours for these exhibitions are Sunday to Friday, 10 am-6 pm, and by appointment. To schedule an appointment, please call 315-443-1300. The exhibitions and reception are free and open to the public. Paid parking is available in the Marion Parking Lot and Booth Garage.
Light Work invites groups and individuals to schedule tours and gallery talks of the exhibition and facility. Light Work is a nonprofit, artist-run organization dedicated to the support of artists working in photography and electronic media. Light Work is a member of CMAC, the Coalition of Museum and Art Centers at Syracuse University. For more information about any of these exhibitions, please contact Jessica Heckman at Light Work, 315-443-1300 or jhheckma@syr.edu.
**Digital press images available upon request.
Image Information:
File name: DeadSon7PRESS.jpg
Dead Son #7
Binh Danh
Chlorophyll print & resin
File name: DeadSon8PRESS.jpg
Dead Son #8
Binh Danh
Chlorophyll print & resin
File name: DeadSon9PRESS.jpg
Dead Son #9
Binh Danh
Chlorophyll print & resin
File name: FasoldtPRESS.jpg
A soldier carries a young boy injured during the Vietnam War, 1966-1967
Al Fasoldt
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