Austin Young

Austin Young (born April 12, 1966) is an American photographer, film maker and new media artist currently based in Los Angeles. His work has created an encyclopedic documentation of sub and trans culture in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Young's photographs have been featured in major publications such as Interview magazine, OK, and Flaunt and have been shown in solo exhibitions and projects at LACMA (Los Angeles, CA), Machine Project (Los Angeles, CA), Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, CA), Berkeley Art Museum (Berkeley, California); and as well as groups shows at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (Los Angeles, CA) and Stephen Cohen Gallery (Los Angeles, CA). In addition to photography and film making, Young is co-founder of Fallen Fruit, an art collective who use fruit as a common denominator for public engagement and collaboration.

Career

Since 1985, Young has been documenting pop, sub, and trans culture while playing with the themes of camp (style), celebrity, gender and identity through portrait photography and film. His portraiture subjects include Sutan Amrull, Jackie Beat, Leigh Bowery, Dame Edna, Peaches Christ, and Jeffree Star. His celebrity portrait subjects include Oliver Stone, Sandra Bernhard, Simon Cowell, Cassandra Peterson, Margaret Cho, Perez Hilton, Ryan Cassata and Amy Poehler. He has also directed videos for Jeffree Star, Jackie Beat's band Dirty Sanchez (band), and shot musicians like Siouxsie Sioux, Deborah Harry, Jane Wiedlin, Diamanda Galas, Jessicka, and Semi Precious Weapons.