William E. Jones
The Golden State
William E. Jones’s series The Golden State harkens back to his early career and his photographic training. Using a still camera to compose the fifty images of the series, Jones turns his lens on the vernacular architecture of California’s southern region, looking at the iconic and idiosyncratic spaces that define a region.
Los Angeles-based artist and filmmaker William E. Jones appropriates vintage film material that he rearranges into new compositions. Often concerned with the way gay imagery was depicted in 1970s and 1980s, Jones’s early films explore the complex configuration of homosexual identity with a rather nostalgic and romanticized gaze. Though fashioned in the same way, his later pieces look more directly at pornography and the appearance of fetish in popular culture.