#deja zing

In the 10th issue of zingmagazine, released in 1999, Ellen Jong published her first project, “blt”--perhaps after the ragged piece of stray, discarded bacon pictured in the curated section. “blt” is a collection of gritty, mostly flash-lit photographs reminiscent of New York’s mythic nightlife scene coming out of the ‘80s and culminating in the ‘90s. Interestingly, Jong does not go so far as to show the overt act of partying itself (i.e. consumption), but rather focuses on its implications and suggestions: drug-induced laughter, splayed limbs, dirty fingernails, trash, dilated pupils, and an acute sense of constant movement. This frenzied movement is key to understanding Jong’s unique party-portraiture. Jong comments: "It was who I'd meet or what would happen while getting to the next place - the in-between moments - that made those years so exciting.” The anonymous stranger’s grin, the passing, blurry arch of a McDonald's, all-black outfits on the subway--for Jong, each holds as much spirit as the party itself. These “in-between moments” of moving amongst and across (literally across, as many of the published photographs were double-page spreads) are the hallmark of restless youth, and New York, with its various boroughs sprawling with parties and ever-hungry party-goers, providing ample material for Jong. Following the publication of “blt,” Jong began developing her most widely-recognized collection, “Pees on Earth,” which was initially published in 2000 by Vice Magazine before Jong amassed the photos into a monograph in 2006. Emerging out of the aforementioned gritty underbelly of the nighttime, “Pees” is a re-examination of counterculture, recklessness, and movement. From Jong’s website: “Jong became fascinated with shooting herself peeing after magnifying the film grain of a perfectly shaped pee drop to sharpness in the darkroom.” What followed is a brilliant assemblage of shadowy vaginas and suspended droplets of pee which frame otherwise relatively uninteresting landscapes: beaches, forests, hotel balconies, and sunsets. Jong is quite literally “taking the piss” when it comes to conventional notions of serenity and beauty, and doesn’t care if you’re offended. Thus, the same defiance of “blt” carries over into “Pees on Earth,” right down to the name of the project itself: a giggly “up yours” to society’s trite idealisms. However, “Pees” seems to have a different relationship with movement than “blt.” Whereas the latter had a clear fascination with the transitional spaces of moving to and from, and chose to express restlessness in “in-between moments,” the former is a slowing of movement, and a provocation through this slowdown. Jong immortalizes the act of peeing, and demands that her viewer stop and look at (if not examine) the stylized, ultra-sharpened drops of piss in this suspended moment. The confrontation is in the motionlessness. Jong has the ability to adapt, to change, and to play with opposites. To achieve similar ends by radically different means. When we put her past and present projects into conversation, we are able to appreciate the finesse and meditation behind Jong’s subversiveness. --Emma Howcroft