Collection Online as of June 6, 2023
Pigs' Heads at a Street Market, Chungking, China
Leo Rubinfien
(American, b. 1953)
Chromogenic process color print
Gift of Cynthia N. Mayer in memory of Estelle Johnson 1994.290
Impression: 2
Location
not on view
Description
Between 1979 and 1988, Leo Rubinfien, an American who lived in Japan during his youth, created a body of color photographs that resulted from his extensive travels in Japan, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, India, Vietnam, and the Philippines. With a sensitive and inquisitive eye, he recorded the ways that these deeply traditional Asian cultures are adapting to a global economy. Though indebted to a long tradition of travel photography, his work resists the stereotypes of that genre. The disquieting image of pigs’ heads and carcasses for sale at a street market seems doubly gory because of the richness of Rubinfien’s color print. The artist captured the ambivalence of an Asian nation that is increasingly participating in international markets, but whose traditions retain an undeniable otherness.
Leo Rubinfien
Leo Rubinfien American, 1953- Leo Rubinfien is an art critic, photographer, filmmaker, and educator. A student of philosophy and literature at Reed College in Oregon, Rubinfien went on to study photography at the California Institute of the Arts (B.F.A, 1974) and Yale University (1976). He then worked for two years as a critic, contributing more than 125 articles, essays, and reviews to major periodicals, including Artforum, Art in America, and the Village Voice. From 1980-88 Rubinfien made an extensive series of color photographs that concentrated on Asian subjects from Burma, Japan, India, Thailand, and Indonesia. The series was shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1992), the Seibu Art Forum, Tokyo (1993), the Cleveland Museum of Art (1994), and the Seattle Art Museum (1995) and was published in 1992 as A Map of the East. Rubinfien (born in Chicago) has won several awards, including fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1983, 1992) and the Asian Cultural Council (1984). He also has had some success as a filmmaker. The Money Juggler (1988) was screened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, as part of its New Directors, New Films festival (1989) and was included in the American Film Institute/Los Angeles International Film Festival (1989). Rubinfien lives in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. A.W.