©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

When the Covid-19 pandemic triggered a wave of anti-Asian actions, San Francisco-based photographer Michael Jang hit the streets. He covered boarded up buildings with images from his 1973 series, The Jangs, as well as with hand crafted posters and graphics. The head-spinning results can be seen in his recently published photobook JANG. His images have a raw, chaotic and often humorous kind of energy.

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

Jang studied photography at the California Institute of the Arts and the San Francisco Art Institute in the 1970s. While a student, Jang produced several projects: The Jangs (1973), Beverly Hilton (1973), San Francisco (1973–87), Summer Weather (1983), College (1972–73), and Punks & Poets (1978–80).

After graduating, Jang put his projects aside and spent more than four decades as a commercial portrait photographer. Then in 2001, he heard that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art had an open submission policy. He dropped off photos from two of his school projects. One was Beverly Hilton, where he captured images of celebrities at events held at the hotel. And the other was The Jangs, a quirky, intimate and candid look at his family. The museum loved his work.

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

His first monograph, Who Is Michael Jang? was published in 2019, the same year his first major retrospective exhibition was held at the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts. The documentary Who is Michael Jang? (dir. Michael Jacobs, 2024) debuted in May 2024 at the San Francisco Documentary Film Festival. Jang’s work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and SFMoMA, among others.

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

About the book
JANG by Michael Jang, showcases the San Francisco–based photographer Michael Jang’s stylized and self-aware street art from recent years. Early in 2021, when the city was still in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic and ugly instances of anti-Asian sentiment were on the rise, Jang clandestinely wheat-pasted some of the images from his black-and-white photographic series The Jangs (1973) over a boarded-up Goodwill storefront on Clement Street, in the heart of San Francisco’s unofficial Chinatown. He branded his photographs with a JANG stencil logo—introducing the persona “Chef Jang,” a chain-smoking wok master—and interspersed them with hand-designed posters and graphics that parody Asian product packaging and menus. Inserted into the visual landscape of this once bustling neighborhood, Jang’s gesture was one of solidarity, belonging and ownership. In JANG, the artist captures his own ephemeral and ever-changing urban interventions in more than 100 new photographs.

To order the book:
https://mweditions.com/books/jang/
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©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions

©Michael Jang, published by MW Editions