Michael Jang’s is a unique story. For the last forty years, he has earned a living as a portrait photographer, capturing iconic figures such as Jimi Hendrix, Robin Williams, and William Burroughs, among others. However, this unassuming Asian-American photographer has also been simultaneously infiltrating and documenting a number of groups and subcultures from all strata of society: from celebrity parties in Beverly Hills to the youth of Castro’s Cuba, from South City gangs to Old West rodeos, and from the punk rock scene of the late 70s to the teenage garage bands of early 2000s San Francisco. His images are allegories of particular points in time, characterized by their candid honesty, decisiveness, and vivacity. SFMoMA has recently acquired a number of his early prints and has exhibited them alongside contemporaries such as Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus, and Lee Friedlander.

Chronology

1977 MFA, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA

1974 San Francisco Art Institute Summer Course with A.D. Coleman, and Ralph Gibson

1973 U.C. Berkeley Extension Summer Course with Lisette Model

1973 BFA, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2019 Michael Jang’s California. Curated by Sandra Phillips. McEvoy Foundation for the Arts; SF, September

2017 Pop Up Nite. Beams Tokyo. January
Michael Jang is NO FUN. Seeing Things Gallery, San Jose. May

2014 Well, It’s All Over Now, Doomed Gallery, London

2013 The Jangs, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2012 Summer Weather, Inaugural Installation, Project Room, SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA

2009 Punks and Poets: SF Subculture in the 70s, Pirate Cat Radio, San Francisco, CA

2008 Garageband, Miesiac Fotografii W Krakowie (Photo Month in Krakow), Krakow, Poland
The Jangs, University High School, San Francisco, CA

1999 "Where do heroes go when they die?" Calumet Photographic Pro Center, San Francisco, CA

Selected Group Exhibitions

2018 Bystander. Leica Store SF. June

Way Bay 2. BAMPFA. July Berkeley.

2016 California and the West. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, May
Collected. Pier 24. May
Cybernetics by Hamburger Eyes 15th Anniversary.. Slow Culture Gallery, Los Angeles. February
Celebrating 20 Years of DADA. Streamline Salon with Gallery 60SIX. December
City At Large 3. Adolf Gassers Parking Lot. July

2015 Let’s Get Zeroxing, Book and Job Gallery, San Francisco, CA
L. Quan, curated by Barry McGee. Ratio 3, November
Peripheral Vision. The Battery SF. November

2014 I’ll Show you Mine, contemporary artists explore family portraiture. Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA
A Survey of Documentary Styles in Early 21st Century Photo Books (Summer Weather), Duke University, Power Plant Gallery,
Durham, NC

Books from Michael JANG