Introduction by George Slade, Program Manager/Curator, Photographic Resource Center (PRC), Boston
Wing Young Huie is an award-winning photographer who has received international attention for his many projects that document the changing cultural landscape of his home state Minnesota. His best-known work is Lake Street USA, which in the summer and fall of 2000 transformed six miles of a well-known Minneapolis thoroughfare into one of the most remarkable public art projects in recent memory. One of Wing's recent project, 9 Months in America: An Ethnocentric Tour, presents a post 9/11 America; a place where Asians, particularly Chinese, happen to be in the majority. This ambitious, cross-country odyssey frames the complexity, nuance, appropriation, humor, contradictions, and surprises of American life in our time. Whether in epic public installations or major museum exhibitions, Wing creates up-to-the-minute societal mirrors of who we are, seeking to reveal not only what is hidden, but also what is plainly visible and seldom noticed. The Minneapolis Star Tribune named Wing "Artist of the Year" in 2000. His three published books are Frogtown: Photogaphs and Conversation in an Urban Neighborhood, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1996, Lake Street USA, Ruminator Books, 2001, and 9 Months in America: An Ethnocentric Tour, University of Minnesota Press, 2007.
