Top Ten #9 - Patrick Tsai and Madi Ju

Patrick Tsai is a 26 year old American who moved to Taiwan in 2003 to pursue his photography. Three years later he met a young Chinese photographer named Madi Ju via the internet and shortly afterwards they began an intense personal and professional relationship. Working together under the studio name "My Little Dead Dick", they began documenting their travels and life together. Like Lartigue crossed with Nan Goldin their photographs are footloose, modern, romantic, and blissfully free of the heavy-handed Chinese references that seem so prevalent in the wake of the Asian art boom. I have never met them or seen their work in person but we have communicated via e-mail, and their pictures are the freshest thing I have seen all year.

The writer Will Doig summed up their work beautifully. “These photographs,” he said “make me want to flee — not flee anything in particular, but simply flee for the pure elation that comes from irresponsibly picking up and leaving. Because what starts as irresponsibility so often turns into opportunity, and sometimes you just need a little nudge to make that leap. This series feels like a good, hard shove.”