LA><ART is pleased to announce an exhibition with Portland-based artist Harrell Fletcher, opening
on January 20th with a special event featuring a variety of speakers who will each reflect on their
personal connection to the Vietnam War. A billboard project will be mounted on La Cienega
Boulevard between Venice and Washington facing north, in tandem with the exhibition.
 
In June 2005, Harrell Fletcher visited Vietnam for a month as part of an international artists’ retreat.
While there, he made a visit to The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.  The War
Remnants Museum is a memorial museum for what is referred to in Vietnam as the American War.
The main museum contains a selection of about 100 documentary photographs starting at the
beginning of the official timeline for US military involvement in 1965 and spanning until the end of the
war in 1975 along with images of people affected by birth defects and war wounds long after the US
military had pulled out of the region. The photos came from a variety of sources—Vietnamese
documentary photos, US magazines and newspapers, and archives of international organizations
that were involved in resolving the conflict and dealing with its after-effects.
 
On one of his last days in Vietnam, Fletcher photographed all of the images and text descriptions
from the main museum using a digital camera. Taking the shots hand-held and at oblique angles to
avoid flash reflections, the images have an oddly casual quality yet represent the material shown at
the museum.

Since returning to the U.S., Fletcher has taken the re-created museum to various cities around the
country including San Antonio, Richmond, Boston, New York, and Portland. At each venue, Fletcher
organized a public program in dialogue with the restaging of the museum. For the exhibition at
LA><ART, Fletcher has organized a “Come Together” event which will feature presentations by
persons who have a connection to the Vietnam War, and who have been selected by local students
and volunteers. The presentations will be 15 minutes each and the event begins at 2 pm and will
continue until 5 pm.

More information and images are available at www.harrellfletcher.com/theamericanwar/.
 
New work by Los Angeles artist Ken Gonzales-Day will be mounted concurrently in Gallery 2. 
Gonzales-Day will produce a billboard project on La Cienega Blvd in Culver City for the month of
February.

Jan, 2007	Come Together
	Harrell Fletcher