shashasha

As the subtitle of Michael Wolf’s book “Informal Solutions” suggests, Wolf’s photography was much more interested in the back alleys, the behind-the-scene places of Hong Kong than its glitzy facade and expensive shopping streets. Wolf, the “anthropologist with a camera”, documented the wonderful quirks and ideas created by necessity, impromptu ingenuity and chance. Split into more than twenty sections, the book focuses on pushcarts, gloves, temporary seating, lost laundry and escaped umbrellas in Hong Kong’s grimy backstages.
As Marc Feustel writes in his introductory essay “Everyday Moments”, “Wolf is fascinated by the locals’ ability to generate utility and function in these spaces where there appears to be none. Not an ounce of functionality is wasted and these alleys have become full of repurposed, repaired objects that would have been discarded long before in most other cities.”

This edition of Michael Wolf’s “Informal Solutions” was published after the artist’s death in 2019 and includes texts by Lynne DiStefano, Lee Ho Yin and Lai Chi Pong in addition to Marc Feustel’s essay.