Peter Bialobrzeski: The Raw and the Cooked

In The Raw and the Cooked, Peter Bialobrzeski (born 1961) sets forth the most complete account of his vision of the Asian megacity. From the simplest shack to the tallest highrise, from vernacular buildings made from scavenged materials to corporate buildings made from steel, concrete and glass, Bialobrzeski records the demented proliferation as Asia’s cities reach higher into the sky and farther across the land. With nearly 130 color plates, The Raw and the Cooked collects a series of tableaux from 14 countries around the world, in which economic transformations are shown to have brought dizzying disparities between wealth and poverty. As with the era-defining series Neon Tigers and Lost in Transition, The Raw and the Cooked depicts these cities with a seductive glow that renders them eerie and unreal as expressions of progress.