I’m just like my avatar: a little bit rough around the edges, nose slightly askew, but rich in line and texture.
I’ve been an artist for over four decades. I am a photographer, writer, and graphic designer with a degree in political science from Michigan State University and an MFA in graphic design and photography from UCLA. The wonderful thing about getting older is seeing my work’s trajectory. I’m interested in the intersection of art practice and the world we live in. This is why engaging the public through my art is so important. This website documents the many forms that interaction has taken.
In the early 1990s, I founded Artists for a Better Image (ArtFBI) to study stereotypes of contemporary artists. In addition, ArtFBI’s mission was to show artists how to use the net to further their careers. My interest in the social intersection of art and American culture continues as I explore new platforms for engaging the public.
In 1999, I was the first artist to use eBay to auction my demographics to the highest bidder. In response to 9/11, I created Dichotomy: It Was a Matter of Time and Place, a 9/11 storytelling project. This website was a finalist at the SXSW Interactive Festival in 2002. In 2008, to the chagrin of even my most ardent supporters, I used Twitter to tweet my root canal live to dentists across North America. Since 2010, under the guise of the Chamomile Tea Party, I’ve been creating posters about the sorry state of contemporary American political discourse. In 2012, just before the presidential election, I bought ad space in the Washington, DC Metro, where I placed my posters on platform advertising signs. Standing next to them allowed me to talk with the public about the issues taking place on Capitol Hill. In the last decade, the rancor and division have only gotten worse, and my images reflect this. The three hundred posters I’ve done so far read like a visual history book of our country. Since 2018, Google Arts & Culture has published eight chapters (online exhibitions) of this work, with more to come.
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Early on, I knew my art wouldn’t pay the bills, so I found interesting jobs along the way. In the mid-1970s, one of the first was as an Artist-in-Residence for the Barrio Mobile Art Studio, a project of Self Help Graphics in East Los Angeles. This was my first interaction with the public, and I was hooked. I’m also a recovering academic, having taught college-level photography and computer graphics for twenty-three years.
My interest in the social ramifications of the net led me to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where I was the Lead Producer of New Media Initiatives for 22 years before retiring in 2018. In 2005, I started the Smithsonian’s first blog, Eye Level, and served as its managing editor for thirteen years. I am particularly interested in how social media affects organizational structure and fuels change. During my time at the Smithsonian, I wrote many articles about changes in the museum world brought on by technology. These pieces have become historical markers in the development of museums and their efforts to engage their online visitors.
My art is in several museum collections, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. I received two National Endowment for the Arts Artists Grants for my photography, including one for my photo documentary In Our Path, about the building and social ramifications of the “last” freeway to be built in Los Angeles. This work is in the collection of the Huntington Library, a repository for Southern California history and art.
I have written for many publications, including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, and National Public Radio. I am the author of Uneventful: The Rise of Photography, about how technology and culture have fueled changes in photography.
Jeff Gates