Phuc Le: Forced Entry

Forced Entry features work from Phuc Le's three continuing projects: So Hip!, Grindr Tests,
and Expedition: Southwest.

So Hip! is an ongoing photographic series spanning from 2007 to present. In each photograph, Le dresses his father in an outfit from his own wardrobe in order to emulate youth fashion - mainly, ads and images from American Apparel, Vice Magazine, and similar sub-pop-media. The series evolved from commenting on cultural commodity to re-connecting with family and in its current state, he finds beauty in making these images as a chronological catalog of portraits, simultaneously, of both himself and his father.

To produce Grindr Tests, Le uses Grindr - the first phone-app of its kind that utilizes GPS technology to locate gay men who are, by chance, online at the same time in close vicinity to one another. Discovering the app through friends who are active users, he is interested in opportunities that this technology may bring to a community living on the fringe. With the approach of a fashion "test shoot", Le puts himself in the position of both participant and observer as he flows  in and out of his subject's bubble. The photographing session is almost always arranged for one to two hours in the late afternoon, and afterwards, a mini-date of sort continues either at a bar or a restaurant as compensation for the men's cooperation (instead of money exchange).

Expedition: Southwest came out of the notion that a new cultural identity is able to establish without assimilating to an existing group of people. For Le, the approval from the land holds more validity than the approval of any hegemonic group. As he journey out on road-expeditions in hope of understanding the regional landmass that he calls home and creating myths in the manners of Darwin and Lewis & Clarke, Le projects himself onto unyielding landscapes of the American Southwest.

Even though the three projects are seperate, Forced Entry is supposed to be viewed upon as a Whole - to be experienced in the same way you would with different tracks on a music album. His photographic works are as traditional as they are contemporary, combining family portraits and landscapes with fashion imagery to emulate mythological portraits of religious figures and pop icons. Exploring the roles of an anthropologist, a photographer, director, stylist, and even casting agent, his photographs start as a visceral viewing experience then slowly reveal the layers of interactions between himself and his subjects. Being part participant and part observer, he explores the limbo space between an insider and an outsider of cultures, gender, and systems.

Born in Vietnam (1985) and developed in Orange County and Los Angeles, he is currently living and working in New York as an artist-in-residence at Flux Factory. His residency and the exhibition Forced Entry is made possible in part by the New York Community Trust Fellowship.

Text by Mille Højerslev Nielsen in close collaboration with Phuc Le.