Michael Jang

Last updated

Michael Jang (born 1951) is an American documentary photographer. Jang is best known for his 1970s photographs of life in Los Angeles and San Francisco, [1] with subjects ranging from his family to punk bands and street scenes. [2]

Contents

Early life

Jang was born in Marysville, California in 1951. [3] [4] Jang studied at CalArts in Los Angeles, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1973. [5] [6] Initially a design major, Jang switched to photography after being exposed to the work of Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander. [7] While at CalArts, Jang photographed the raunchiness of the student environment; in 2013 he published the photos in a book titled College. [8] [9] During his time at CalArts he used fake press credentials to access events and parties at The Beverly Hilton hotel, where he was able to photograph a range of people from the unknown to famous musicians and politicians. [3] [10] [11]

Later in the 1970s, he moved to San Francisco, [12] where he would receive an MFA degree from the San Francisco Art Institute. [3] [13] While in grad school he photographed the San Francisco punk rock scene, including a portrait of Johnny Rotten following his last Sex Pistols performance. [14]

Work

Following art school, Jang continued to pursue creative projects while earning a living as a commercial photographer in San Francisco. [15] He was relatively unknown as an artist until 2002, when the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art acquired several of his photographs. [16] The subjects of his work are mainly vernacular and street photography. [17] His 1973 series The Jangs documents the assimilation of his Asian-American family. [18] [19] His 1983 series Summer Weather documented auditioning weather reporters. [20]

In 2019 the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts staged a retrospective exhibition of his work. [17] The same year, Atelier Editions published a retrospective monograph of his work titled Who is Michael Jang? [3] [21]

Publications

Collections

Jang's work is held in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art [4] and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. [23]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Francisco Museum of Modern Art</span> Modern and contemporary art museum in San Francisco, California (SFMOMA)

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art. The museum's current collection includes over 33,000 works of painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, and media arts, and moving into the 21st century. The collection is displayed in 170,000 square feet (16,000 m2) of exhibition space, making the museum one of the largest in the United States overall, and one of the largest in the world for modern and contemporary art.

Edward Joseph Ruscha IV is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, and film. He is also noted for creating several artist's books. Ruscha lives and works in Culver City, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Baldessari</span> American conceptual artist (1931–2020)

John Anthony Baldessari was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark di Suvero</span> American sculptor (born 1933)

Marco Polo di Suvero, better known as Mark di Suvero, is an abstract expressionist sculptor and 2010 National Medal of Arts recipient.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Wessel Jr.</span> American photographer and educator (1942–2018)

Henry Wessel was an American photographer and educator. He made "obdurately spare and often wry black-and-white pictures of vernacular scenes in the American West".

Richard Misrach is an American photographer. He has photographed the deserts of the American West, and pursued projects that document the changes in the natural environment that have been wrought by various man-made factors such as urban sprawl, tourism, industrialization, floods, fires, petrochemical manufacturing, and the testing of explosives and nuclear weapons by the military. Curator Anne Wilkes Tucker writes that Misrach's practice has been "driven [by] issues of aesthetics, politics, ecology, and sociology." In a 2011 interview, Misrach noted: "My career, in a way, has been about navigating these two extremes - the political and the aesthetic."

Jim Goldberg is an American artist and photographer, whose work reflects long-term, in-depth collaborations with neglected, ignored, or otherwise outside-the-mainstream populations.

Miyako Ishiuchi, is a Japanese photographer.

Larry Sultan was an American photographer from the San Fernando Valley in California. He taught at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1978 to 1988 and at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco 1989 to 2009.

William Abbenseth (1898–1972) was an American photographer known for his black and white photographs of San Francisco architecture.

Jenny Lens, MFA, is a Los Angeles native and was one of the first photographers to chronicle the early punk rock scene of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and London from August 1976 to June 1980.

Anthony Hernandez is an American photographer who divides his time between Los Angeles, his birthplace, and Idaho. His photography has ranged from street photography to images of the built environment and other remains of civilization, particularly those discarded or abandoned elements that serve as evidence of human presence. He has spent most of his career photographing in Los Angeles and environs. "It is L.A.'s combination of beauty and brutality that has always intrigued Hernandez." La Biennale di Venezia said of Hernandez, "For the past three decades a prevalent question has troubled the photographer: how to picture the contemporary ruins of the city and the harsh impact of urban life on its less advantaged citizens?" His wife is the novelist Judith Freeman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Learoyd</span> British artist and photographer

Richard Learoyd is a British contemporary artist and photographer.

Mike Mandel is an American conceptual artist and photographer. According to his artist profile, his work "questions the meaning of photographic imagery within popular culture and draws from snapshots, advertising, news photographs, and public and corporate archives."

Matt Lipps is an American photographer and artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janet Delaney</span> American photographer and educator

Janet Delaney is an American photographer and educator based in Berkeley, California. Her books include South of Market (2013) and Public Matters (2018).

John Forrest Harding is a San Francisco–based photographer best known for the color street photography that he has pursued for four decades. Harding is the author of several photography books, and has taught courses on photography at City College of San Francisco and College of Marin.

Morris Huberland (1909–2003) was a Polish-American photographer. Huberland is best known for his black and white documentary photography of New York City street scenes.

Mimi Plumb, also known as Mimi Plumb-Chambers, is an American photographer and educator, living in Berkeley, California. Plumb is part of a long tradition of socially engaged documentary photographers concerned with California. She has published three books, Landfall (2018), The White Sky (2020), and The Golden City (2021).

References

  1. ↑ "Michael Jang The Whole Story, 2022–2023 · SFMOMA". 2023-09-29. Archived from the original on 2023-09-29. Retrieved 2024-02-03.
  2. ↑ "Michael Jang The Whole Story, 2022–2023 · SFMOMA". 2023-09-29. Archived from the original on 2023-09-29. Retrieved 2024-02-03.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "A Rediscovered Archive from California in the Seventies". The New Yorker. 2019-08-24. Archived from the original on 2019-08-24. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
  4. 1 2 "Michael Jang · SFMOMA". San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Archived from the original on 2019-06-24. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
  5. ↑ "Michael Jang's Instagram Feed Offers a Window into CalArts in the '70s". 26 June 2014. Archived from the original on 2019-08-24. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
  6. ↑ "Michael Jang's College Series is the Unofficial Yearbook for His Graduating Class". 2014-06-17. Archived from the original on 2019-08-24. Retrieved 2019-08-24– via vice.com.
  7. ↑ "The forgotten photos that made Michael Jang's name". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2019-09-20. Retrieved 2019-11-21. Behind paywall.
  8. ↑ "See Raunchy Photos from CalArts in the 1970s". 2014-07-16. Archived from the original on 2019-08-24. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
  9. 1 2 "College by Michael Jang, second edition out now", Hamburger Eyes, May 16, 2013. Accessed August 1, 2020.
  10. ↑ "Asian Art Museum | Michael Jang". www.asianart.org. Archived from the original on 2019-08-25. Retrieved 2019-08-25.
  11. ↑ "Michael Jang: Summer Weather". Popular Photography. 17 October 2011. Archived from the original on 2019-08-24. Retrieved 2019-08-25.
  12. ↑ "Michael Jang The Whole Story, 2022–2023 · SFMOMA". 2023-09-29. Archived from the original on 2023-09-29. Retrieved 2024-02-03.
  13. ↑ "Michael Jang's California | September 27, 2019 – January 18, 2020". Archived from the original on August 24, 2019. Retrieved August 24, 2019.
  14. ↑ "Iconic Photos from San Francisco's 70s Punk Scene". 2017-01-04. Archived from the original on 2019-08-05. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
  15. ↑ "Michael Jang: Family snapshots become fine art". 2008-11-10. Archived from the original on 2019-08-24. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
  16. ↑ Seibel, Brendan (2009-10-21). "Punk Rock, DIY Access and Secret Success: The Photography of Michael Jang". Wired. Archived from the original on 2016-12-23. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
  17. 1 2 "Michael Jang photo installed above Clement Street to promote new retrospective exhibition – Richmond District Blog". 23 August 2019. Archived from the original on 2019-08-24. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
  18. ↑ "Michael Jang: The Jangs". 2015-06-05. Archived from the original on 2019-08-01. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
  19. ↑ "Meet the Brady Bunch, Asian-American style — courtesy of photographer Michael Jang". Public Radio International. Archived from the original on 2019-08-24. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
  20. ↑ Coppelman, Alyssa (17 January 2013). "America's Next Top Weather Reporter: 1980s Edition". Slate. Archived from the original on 24 August 2019. Retrieved 25 August 2019.
  21. ↑ Kenneth Dickerman and Michael Jang, "Idiosyncratic photos show life in 1970s Los Angeles and San Francisco", Washington Post, February 21, 2020.
  22. ↑ "Who Is Michael Jang? by Michael Jang". Atelier Éditions. Archived from the original on 2019-10-03. Retrieved 2019-10-04.
  23. ↑ [Michael Jang "https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.52643.html"].{{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help); External link in |title= (help)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.