Harrell Fletcher: The American War

In June, 2005, while traveling in Vietnam, artist Harrell Fletcher visited The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. Deeply affected by the exhibit, Fletcher returned to photograph all of the images and text descriptions from the main museum with the intention of re-presenting the exhibition in the United States. Fletcher's exhibition The American War toured for two years, stopping at various U. S. venues including the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at M. I. T. and White Columns in New York City. With this collection of images, Fletcher encourages his audience to reconsider opinions of the War in Vietnam and other American wars that have occurred since. Harrell Fletcher is a visual artist working in mixed media: video, installation, photography and web based works. His work was featured in the 2004 Whitney Biennial. Fletcher has an MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts and has taught and lectured in the US and Europe. In Spring 2004, he taught at New York's Cooper Union. A hallmark of his work is to devise strategies for transforming the everyday experiences and objects of community residents into curated exhibitions.