A few weeks ago, we presented Benny Chan's impossibly awesome collection of freeway photography, Traffic!, in the form of a Picture Show. Tomorrow, Mr. Chan's series will open at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. It will show through September 20, and, judging from how impressive the images were onscreen, it should be awe-inspiring-especially given that the photos in the exhibition stand eight feet tall by six feet wide.I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Chan, who told me, quite matter-of-factly, that the inspiration for his project was one day of especially bad traffic."How do I express the ridiculousness of this mess," Chan wondered. "I tried to shoot it from the ground, and it looked really dense that way, but it failed to show the extent of it all. So, I decided to take to the air."He developed a complicated camera apparatus to capture the images and, once the project began to develop, the artist started to marvel at the scale of it all. He now hopes the size and scope of the images will reveal enormity of this problem, and move us to do something about.Learn about the PMCA's current exhibitions here.
Share on Facebook
