Final Project Images

Here are a few rough scans of negatives that I've chosen to print for my final project:

Booooooom!

I don't browse online photo zines as much as I know I should, but lately I've been enjoying the photo section of a creative arts blog called Booooooom! Here's a link: http://www.booooooom.com/sorted/photo/

My friend brought the site to my attention a few months back when he emailed me this blog entry about a young photographer named Jeff Luker. He had put out a small photo zine in November called "Not Many Kingdoms Left" that I really enjoyed. Here's a link to the article, which also links to Jeff Luker's personal site.

This photo blog keeps me coming coming back because it offers such a diverse catalog of work from various artists, from more fine art photographer to fashion and even to the narrative street/documentary work of Luker. The site is always looking for submissions from new photographers, so I plan to enter some of my work in the near future. Happy browsing!

Photography from the New China

I wasn't sure what to expect form the "New China" photography exhibit at the Getty on Tuesday, but the showcase ended up being very intriguing. My favorite of the the selected photographers was Wang Qingsong because of both his dynamic re-purposing of a traditional Chinese art form and his statements as an artist. The picture below stood out to me as representative of Qingsong's over-arching ideas of chaos and culture clash that come from China's struggles in the face of rapid globalization and the materialistic branding it has adopted from modern Western civilization.

 

Overall the exhibit was informative and exciting. Certain artists like Rong Rong were showcasing work that documented the Beijing East Village, an art collective that struck me as extremely independent and self-sufficient given its restrictive environment. I can admit (unfortunately) that I am one of many Westerners who have little to no intellectual investment in the Eastern art world, but after seeing these photographers I have been inspired to look to the cultural and artistic movements of Asian countries to find new ideas. The radical differences in how the Far East operates culturally influences the modes of creative production amongst the artists over there, and I know I could benefit by studying them.