Marco van Duyvendijk

This compelling monograph collects photographs made by the Dutch photographer Marco van Duyvendijk during his travels in China, Mongolia, Taiwan and South Korea. Portraits of Mongolian contortionist girls and alternative youth culture are followed by Taiwanese Betel Nut Beauties and South Korean high school girls, among other subcultures.

Marco van Duyvendijk was born in the Netherlands in 1974. He studied psychology in college and has applied his training to his work as a self-taught photographer and a striking portraitist. Over the past few years, he has concentrated on life in Central and Eastern Europe, but at the request of the Mongolian Consulate he recently spent a winter and a summer in Mongolia. This book is the result. Its 72 color prints present daily life in a society where a teenager might just as easily live like a nomad on the steppe as like punk in the city. The images are both pretty (in the way of faded retro fabrics and pink cheeks) and beautiful (in the way of high cheekbones and high altitude). Their subjects include child contortionists, young monks in saffron robes, school girls in ruffled pinafores, coal miners, horse racers and a vendor selling sunglasses in an open field.