The Goods #7
Framing Perspectives of McDonald's, Vintage Ads, Black Life, and LA
Welcome to The Goods, a monthly list of things I’m excited about and interested in across art, fashion, trends, and more.
“Art has always been a visual medium first. It's not an academic medium, so it’s not meant to be didactic in that way. It's meant to be visceral. Photography in general as a medium is really as much about the image as it is about the baggage that we bring to viewing images in an image-loaded culture.” - Photographer, Tyler Mitchell
This month’s Goods is a look at photographers and their projects that shape, reflect, and challenge our perceptions - from the familiar golden arches reimagined in local contexts to intimate snapshots of city life and joy.
McAtlas: Mapping McDonald's Cultural Journey
Gary He is a James Beard Award winning photographer and writer with serious love for McDonald’s. In 2018, he set out to create “a visual social anthropology” of the McDonald’s around the world. The last book that was written about McDonald’s was released in 1986 (McDonald’s: Behind the Arches by John F. Love) and ended with a chapter about global expansion. At the time there was nervousness about what globalization would do to the world with the golden arches on every corner. He’s book is a look at the architecture, menus, and design details where McDonald’s has taken a more nuanced approach.
As he shared in a recent interview, “I see this project as a sequel to [Love’s] book. What does it look like now that McDonald’s has expanded around the world? What does it look like now that we are past what people thought was globalization’s end game and a lot of those things haven’t really played out the way the worst prognostications had predicted?”.
The Real Thing: A Photographic Journey Through Consumerism at The Met
Vintage ads continue to inspire, not merely as time capsules of past consumer habits but as true works of art. A recent exhibit at the Met, The Real Thing: Unpacking Product Photography, focused on how commercial photography in the early to mid 1900s helped shape the visual language of modernism.
“Theater Accident, New York” at the top of the post by Irving Penn provides a glimpse into the life of this theater goer, which at the time was an unusual way to showcase product (picture was taken in 1947, but printed in Vogue in 1984 with a whole list of things to buy to be THAT girl - a precursor to the “What’s In My Bag” posts of today).
Commercial photographers embraced avant garde styles from cubism to surrealism to opt for a story that was much more than sharing the functional benefits of comb or light bulb, which was visually enthralling (I don’t have the data, but would hope that this also led to sales).
Tyler Mitchell: Crafting Narratives Beyond Fashion
Tyler Mitchell shot Beyonce for American Vogue when was only 23 and now at 29, he’s gone on to make a name for himself not only as a fashion photographer but an artist shown at many galleries around the world. Mitchell weaves narrative storytelling into every picture, exploring visions of Black Life. His work captures the essence of youth and identity, pushing beyond traditional boundaries to explore deeper societal themes.
Each of his pictures feel like you’ve stumbled in on this tender moment that is infused with play, which aligns to Mitchell’s overall ethos:“To a degree, all of the work is sort of seeking this sense of me discovering something, or exploring something, or playing with something, or acting out a dream scenario — otherwise it doesn't feel as exciting to me. I’m interested in exploring the concept of play and leisure and what that is and who it’s for, but It’s also very lived, embodied experience because the people in the photos are experiencing those moments when we’re making them”.
Projecting L.A. 2024 at the Los Angeles Public Library
"Projecting L.A. 2024" is a showcase of powerful street photography and photojournalism from the streets of LA taken by 32 photographers. The film, assembled by the L.A. Project, aims to document the changing city and share work from the city’s artists.
The photos are of the cityscapes and people who make up the city including Hollywood behind-the-scenes, the legacy of Marilyn Monroe, the region’s fentanyl crisis, cruising Van Nuys Boulevard in the 1970s, the Venice barrio in the 1980s and the Armenian diaspora in the early 2000s. The video will be screening at LA Public Libraries through early 2025. See the full list here for dates/times.
PS: Looking for photography for your home? Stay tuned - next week’s post will feature some of my favorite finds that I’ve been curating for clients. Subscribe below to be on the list!