Michael Jang (born 1951) is an American documentary photographer. He is best known for his 1970s photographs of life in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, with subjects ranging from his family to punk bands and street scenes.

Early life and studies

Jang was born in

Marysville, California Marysville is a city and the county seat of Yuba County, California, located in the Gold Country region of Northern California. As of the 2010 United States census, the population was 12,072, reflecting a decrease of 196 from the 12,268 counte ...

in 1951. He studied at

CalArts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both the ...

Santa Clarita Santa Clarita (; Spanish for "Little St. Clare") is a city in northwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a 2020 census population of 228,673, it is the third-most populous city in Los Angeles County, the 17th-most populo ...

receiving a

Bachelor of Fine Arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students pursuing a professional education in the visual arts, Fine art, or performing arts. In some instances, it is also called a Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA). Background ...

degree in 1973. Initially a design major, Jang switched to photography after being exposed to the work of

Diane Arbus Diane Arbus (; ; March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971
by

Garry Winogrand Garry Winogrand (; January 14, 1928 – March 19, 1984) was an American street photographer, who portrayed U.S. life and its social issues in the mid-20th century. Photography curator, historian, and critic John Szarkowski called Winogrand the ...

, and

Lee Friedlander Lee Friedlander (; born July 14, 1934) is an American photographer and artist. In the 1960s and 1970s, Friedlander evolved an influential and often imitated visual language of urban "social landscape," with many of his photographs including fra ...

. While at CalArts, Jang photographed the raunchiness of the student environment and 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. While at CalArts he used fake press credentials to access events and parties at

The Beverly Hilton The Beverly Hilton is a hotel located on an property at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards in Beverly Hills, California, United States. The Beverly Hilton has hosted many awards shows, charity benefits, and entertainment ...

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 and earned a MFA degree from the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, 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 Mis ...

. While in grad school he photographed the San Francisco

punk rock Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced sh ...

scene, including a portrait of

Johnny Rotten John Joseph Lydon ( ; born 31 January 1956), also known by his former stage name Johnny Rotten, is a British-born singer, songwriter, author, and television personality. He was the lead vocalist of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols, which was ...

after his last

Sex Pistols The Sex Pistols are an English punk rock band formed in London in 1975. Although their initial career lasted just two and a half years, they became culturally influential in popular music. The band initiated the punk movement in the United Ki ...

performance.

Work

After art school, Michael 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 The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

acquired several of his photographs. The subjects of his work are mainly

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

photography and

street photography Street photography is photography conducted for art or inquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within Public space, public places. It usually has the aim of capturing images at a decisive or poignant moment by caref ...

. His 1973 series ''The Jangs'' documents the assimilation of his

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans with ancestry from the continent of Asia (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of those immigrants). Although this term had historically been used fo ...

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 ', "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 software development, popular culture, and the arts. ...

exhibition of his work. Also in 2019, 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;'' Los Angeles: Hamburger Eyes, 2011; *''Summer Weather;'' San Francisco: Owl & Tiger Books, 2012; *''College;'' San Francisco: Hamburger Eyes, 2013; Special edition, 2014. *''The Jangs × Los Angeles;'' Los Angeles: 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, a foreword by

Erik Kessels Erik Kessels (1966) is a Dutch artist, designer and curator with a particular interest in photography, and co-founder of KesselsKramer, an advertising agency in Amsterdam. Kessels and Johan Kramer established the "legendary and unorthodox" Kessels ...

and texts by Kingston Trinder; Edition of 3000 copies

Collections

Jang's work is in the collection of the

and the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an 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 charge, the museum was privately established in ...

Washington, D.C Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

References

External links

*
Michael Jang's earlier parody website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jang, Michael 21st-century American photographers 20th-century American photographers 1951 births Living people