Wayne State University's College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts is proud to present the exhibition Asia on the Edge: Photographs by Reagan Louie in the Elaine L. Jacob Gallery from September 19 through November 7, 2008. Asia on the Edge is culled from several recent series of California fine art photographer Reagan Louie. Approximately 50 photographs feature images of building sites in Hong Kong, workers in capitol cities, school children in parks, soldiers, and civilians in towns that Louie passed through during his extensive travels in Asia over the past 20 years. In each large-scale photograph (some are as large as 4 by 6 feet), Louie poignantly captures a cultural landscape where past and present uncomfortably co-exist through details of face, dress, and architecture. In his jarring and sumptuous photographs, Louie explores the striking clashes of East and West, past and future, and local and global, in a time of phenomenal transition.

Louie holds a BFA from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and an MFA from Yale University. He is Chair of the department and Associate Professor of Photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. His work has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, with a catalogue published by powerHouse Books. His 1991 book, Toward a Truer Life: Photographs of China 1980-1990, published by Aperture, received critical acclaim. Louie's work is in numerous collections, including in those of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Modern Art (New York), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The artist has been the recipient of many awards, including Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, the James D. Phelan Art Award, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, and the Dorothea Lange/Paul Taylor prize.

In conjunction with this exhibition, artist Reagan Louie will present an illustrated lecture, open to the public and free of charge, on Thursday, September 18 at 7:00 PM in the Purdy Kresge Library Auditorium at Wayne State University. The artist will also be in attendance at the exhibition's opening reception on Friday, September 19 from 5:00 to 8:00 PM at the Elaine L. Jacob Gallery at 480 W. Hancock, between Cass and Second, in Detroit, on the campus of Wayne State University. The opening reception is free and open to the public, and the artist will be in attendance to provide a gallery talk on his work.