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, with subjects ranging from his family to punk bands and street scenes.
Early life
Jang was born in Marysville, California in 1951.
Jang studied at
CalArts in Los Angeles, receiving a
Bachelor of Fine Arts
A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases.
Background
The Bachelor ...
degree in 1973. Initially a design major, Jang switched to photography after being exposed to the work of
Diane Arbus,
Garry Winogrand and
Lee Friedlander. While at CalArts, Jang photographed the raunchiness of the student environment; in 2013 he published the photos in a book titled ''College''.
[College by Michael Jang, second edition out now]
, Hamburger Eyes, May 16, 2013. Accessed August 1, 2020. 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.
Later in the 1970s, he moved to San Francisco, where he would receive an
MFA degree from the
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...
.
While in grad school he photographed the San Francisco
punk rock scene, including a portrait of
Johnny Rotten following his last
Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band formed in London in 1975. Although their initial career lasted just two and a half years, they were one of the most groundbreaking acts in the history of popular music. They were responsible for ...
performance.
Work
Following art school, Jang continued to pursue creative projects while earning a living as a commercial photographer in San Francisco. He was relatively unknown as an artist until 2002, when the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art acquired several of his photographs. The subjects of his work are mainly
vernacular and
street photography.
His 1973 series ''The Jangs'' documents the assimilation of his Asian-American family. His 1983 series ''Summer Weather'' documented auditioning weather reporters.
In 2019 the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts staged a
retrospective
A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...
exhibition of his work.
The same year, Atelier Editions published a retrospective monograph of his work titled ''Who is Michael Jang?''
Publications
*''Far East of Suburbia.'' Michael Jang, n.d. .
*''The Jangs.'' Michael Jang, 2009. .
*''One of a Kind.''
os Angeles Hamburger Eyes, 2011. .
*''Summer Weather.'' San Francisco: Owl & Tiger Books, 2012. .
*''College.''
an Francisco Hamburger Eyes, 2013.
Special edition, 2014. .
*''The Jangs × Los Angeles.'' Los Angeles, California: Pascale Georgiev and Kingston Trinder, 2014. .
*''To Mike.'' Los Angeles: Atelier, 2016. .
*''Who is Michael Jang?'' Los Angeles: Atelier, 2019. . With an introduction by
Sandra S. Phillips Sandra S. "Sandy" Phillips (born 1945) is an American writer, and curator working in the field of photography. She is the Curator Emeritus of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She joined the museum as curator of photography in 1 ...
, a foreword by
Erik Kessels and texts by Kingston Trinder. Edition of 3000 copies.
Collections
Jang's work is held in the collection of the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...
in Washington, DC.
References
External links
*
Michael Jang's earlier parody website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jang, Michael
21st-century American photographers
20th-century American photographers
1951 births
Living people