For the first time in history, the notoriously guarded warrior monks of the 1500-year-old Shaolin Temple--a Chinese Buddhist sect dedicated to preserving a form of kung fu known as the "vehicle of Zen"--have allowed their secretive society to be documented. With the blessing of the main abbot, Justin Guariglia earned the trust and full collaboration of the Shaolin monks to create an astonishing, empathic record of the Shaolin art forms and the individuals who consider themselves the keepers of these traditions. Over the past eight years, Guariglia has deftly captured the changing context of this ancient sect as it encounters the increasingly hyper-modern world of contemporary China. This amazing work provides viewers with a rare opportunity to examine the energy and spirit of the Shaolins' unique Zen practice, which has until now primarily been seen via pop-cultural interpretation in such films as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It features serial imagery of fighting poses; cinematic grid images and cool design.
Justin Guariglia
Photographer's Biography
Born in 1974 in Maplewood, New Jersey, Justin Guariglia now resides in New York City after spending a decade (1995 - 2005) living in Venice, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Taipei, and Shanghai.
A regular contributor to Smithsonian magazine, Justin is also a Photographer and Contributing Editor to National Geographic Traveler Magazine in Washington, D.C., and was a former feature photographer covering China for the New York Times from 1999 through 2004.
An incessant traveller, Guariglia has covered the globe on assignments ranging from the rolling hills of Umbria in Northern Italy, to the Dzud effect in Mongolia, from Sulfur Mining in Eastern Java, Indonesia to the environment and nature of the remote Sable Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia. His work focuses heavily on people and places, within the context of world cultures and the environment.
His first book, entitled Shaolin: Temple of Zen was published by the Aperture Foundation of New York in October of 2007, and accompanied by a 99 piece internationally travelling exhibition, also produced by Aperture. The book and exhibition feature the notoriously guarded Shaolin Temple, which is the birthplace of Zen Buddhism and martial arts. Guariglia is the first photographer ever allowed to document the real monks of Shaolin in the 1500-year-old temple's history.
His second book, entitled Planet Shanghai, Published in Spring 2008 by Chronicle Books of San Francisco, looks at daily life in and around the old, and quickly disappearing, long tan or back alley communal living quarters of Shanghai, China.
Guariglia was nominated for the International Center of Photography's Young Photographer Infinity Award, has received numerous Photo of the Year awards, and was named by Photo District News as one of the top "30 Young Photographers under 30." Guariglia's archive is represented by the National Geographic Image Collection in Washington, D.C., and his images are in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, among numerous other private collections around the world.
National Geographic bio:
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photographers/photographer-justin-guariglia/
