blejz:

Bernice Bing

A San Francisco native, Chinese American, artist, lesbian, community activist—Bernice Bing, was a bridge between many worlds. She came of age during the Beat era and entered the San Francisco arts landscape in the 1960s with her paintings, which synthesize abstract modernist painting with Chinese calligraphy.

(via shinji--moon-deactivated2017123)

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avatar-dacia:

thisisarebeljyn:

fearwax:

scootsenshi:

24-sa3t:

comradeonion:

powerofthestruggle:

Man eating rice, China, 1901-1904

this is an extremely important picture

Ive never seen someone from 1904 having fun omg

He has a nice face

No but the history behind this picture is really interesting

The reason that everyone always looked miserable in old photos wasn’t that they took too long to take. Once photography became widespread it took only seconds to take a picture.

It was because getting your photo taken was treated the same as getting your portrait painted. A very serious occasion meant so thst your descendants would know that ypu existed and what you looked like.

But one time some British dudes went to china to go on an anthropological expedition, and they met some rural Chinese farmers and decided to take their pictures. Now, these people weren’t exposed to the weird culture of the time around getting your photo taken, so this guy just flashed a big grin during the photo because he was told to strike a pose and that’s the pose he wanted to strike.

I think painted portraits and old photos give us the idea that in general people were just really unhappy because those are the visuals we have. This is so refreshing.

Hey, look; “Man Laughing Alone With Rice” is back on my dash.

(via jenzawa)

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orientallyyours:

The late San Francisco artist Bernice Lee Bing with one of her paintings. Bing fought through discrimination as a woman, as an Asian-American, and a lesbian, and was at the forefront of the city’s avant-garde art scene in the 1960s.

Source: San Francisco Examiner

(via ancient---light)

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