Jordan Baumgarten
Bio: Jordan Baumgarten (born Philadelphia, PA 1983) is an American Photographer based in Philadelphia, PA. He earned his MFA in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA in Photography from The University of the Arts, Philadelphia. The recipient of numerous grants and awards, Baumgarten’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in solo, two-person, and juried group exhibitions and published in international contemporary photographic journals such as: BJP, Vice, PDN, Dazed, Aint-Bad, Flak Photo, Fraction Magazine and The Photo Review among others.
His most recent monograph Good Sick is a photographic portrait of the US opioid crisis, shown through its effects on one neighborhood in Philadelphia. The neighborhood of Kensington is a nexus for those in and around the city seeking heroin and all that it entails. The supporting addiction based economy co-exists alongside everyday life in the neighborhood and in its surrounding landscape there are signs and premonitions of disorder and confusion. The photographs in this book depict chaos; nature encroaching on urban decay; an ambiguity between magic and darkness; private moments which are public; animals and humans roam free – fueled by id, and always, somewhere, there is a fire burning. The images in Good Sick are a small proportion of those taken by Baumgarten, a native of the city, between the winter of 2012 and the spring of 2017.
Good Sick, published by Gost Books in London can be purchased at: https://gostbooks.com/product/good-sick/
Average American of the Right Type
Statement: Images in this collection were included in the two-person exhibition Bear / Hunt at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s Weil Gallery (10/13/17-11/17/17) are from Baumgarten series Average American of the Right Type which explores ideas of masculinity as defined by Teddy Roosevelt and hunting culture in the US.
Website: www.jordanbaumgarten.com