Việt Lê

Việt Lê is an artist, writer, and curator. Lê is an Associate Professor in Visual Studies at California College of the Arts (San Francisco | Oakland). He has been published in positions: asia critique; Crab Orchard Review; American Quarterly; Amerasia Journal; Art Journal; 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; among other venues. White Gaze, an art book (poetry, images, performance) in collaboration with Michelle Dizon and Faith Wilding is published by Sming Sming Books & Objects (February 2018).


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 curated Miss Saigon with the Wind (Highways, Santa Monica, 2005) and Charlie Don’t Surf!(Centre A, Vancouver, BC, 2005); and co-curated humor us (with Leta Ming and Yong Soon Min; Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, LA, CA, 2008), transPOP: Korea Việt Nam Remix (with Yong Soon Min; Seoul, Sài Gòn, Irvine, San Francisco, 2008-09), the 2012 Taipei Kuandu Biennale and Love in the Time of War (UC Santa Barbara and SF Camerawork).He coorganized the 2015Artistic Interventions confererence (Ph.D. workshops and symposium) in Hong Kong. Lê's projects have been featured in Newsweek Asia; The Korea Herald, The Toronto Star, Huffington Post, China Daily, Orange County Register, Bangkok Post, and The Cambodia Daily.

Lê has co-edited special issues of Asian American Literary Review ([Re]Collecting Vietnam, 2015), BOL Journal (Việt Nam and Us, 2008) and Reflections: A Journal of Writing, Service Learning, and Community Literacy (Syracuse University Press, 2008). He has also co-edited with Professor Lan Duong a special issue of Visual Anthropology (Routledge, winter 2018. He is a reviews co-editor (with Prof. Laura Kina) of Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas (Brill). He was a nominated finalist for the 2009 Sovereign Art Foundation Art Prize (Hong Kong). His poetry collection was a 2013 Crab Orchard Review First Book Award Semi-Finalist. He received the inaugural Prudential Eye Prize for Best Writing on Asian Contemporary Art (2015).

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 (Department of American Studies & Ethnicity). In Taipei, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Academia Sinica. He is a board member of the Queer Culture Center and has been a panelist for Art Matters, Camargo Foundation, among others. His writing has been translated into Chinese, German, Khmer, and Vietnamese.

Việt Lê is an artist, writer, and curator. Lê is an Associate Professor in Visual Studies at California College of the Arts. Recent solo exhibitions include Sonic Spiritualities (Vargas Museum, Manila 2020), lovebang! (Kellogg University Art Gallery, LA '16), vestige (H Gallery Bangkok '15), tan nÁRT cõi lòng | heARTbreak! (Nhà Sàn Collective Hà Nội ‘15). Lê has presented his work at The Banff Centre, DoBaeBacSa Gallery, Seoul; UCLA Hammer Museum; 1a Space, Hong Kong; Bangkok Art & Cultural Center (BACC), Civitella Ranieri; Shanghai Biennale, Dartmouth College, Rio Gay Film Festival, among other venues. White Gaze is an art book (poetry, images, performance) in collaboration with Michelle Dizon and Faith Wilding (Sming Sming Books & Objects | Candor Arts). Lê co-curated humor us (with Leta Ming and Yong Soon Min; Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, LA, CA, 2008), transPOP: Korea Việt Nam Remix (with Yong Soon Min; Seoul, Sài Gòn, Irvine, San Francisco, 2008-09), the 2012 Taipei Kuandu Biennale and Love in the Time of War (UC Santa Barbara and SF Camerawork). He coorganized the 2015 Artistic Interventions conference (Ph.D. workshops and symposium) in Hong Kong.

Lê has co-edited special issues of Asian American Literary Review ([Re]Collecting Vietnam, 2015), BOL Journal (Việt Nam and Us, 2008) and Reflections: A Journal of Writing, Service Learning, and Community Literacy (Syracuse University Press, 2008). He has also co-edited with Professor Lan Duong a special issue of Visual Anthropology (Routledge, winter 2018. He is a reviews co-editor (with Prof. Laura Kina) of Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas (Brill). He was a nominated finalist for the 2009 Sovereign Art Foundation Art Prize (Hong Kong). He received the inaugural Prudential Eye Prize for Best Writing on Asian Contemporary Art (2015). 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. He is a board member of the Queer Culture Center and on the editorial board of the Journal of Vietnamese Studies (JVS).