Mike Mandel: A Subversive Lens on American Identity Mike Mandel’s work, spanning decades and encompassing photography, conceptual art, and public installations, presents a quietly unsettling portrait of contemporary America. Born in Los Angeles in 1950, Mandel’s artistic trajectory is deeply rooted in the sprawling, rapidly changing landscape of Southern California during the 1970s – an era of burgeoning consumerism, highway expansion, and a pervasive sense of manufactured nostalgia. This formative experience profoundly shaped his approach to image-making, leading him to question the very na…