Private - PC gas station, Kansas

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on March 17, 2014 at 11:21pm

Curator’s Comments:

 

A lot has seemingly been written about “ruin porn” this year, with a proliferation of new work that aestheticizes urban decay.  (Romain Meffre’s glossy coffee table edition The Ruins of Detroit in 2010 is an earlier, celebrated example.) While it can be potentially controversial in the context of gentrification, these pieces appear to be sensitive observations leaning towards long established documentary photography.  I don’t detect overt manipulation of the broken and damaged environments, but rather careful attention to found vignettes that appeal to the viewer through a myriad of sensory recollections and collective emotive experiences.  The piece entitled Private best highlights this intimacy for me, with its rather minimal and sparse interior.  The thin outlines of tools that once hung on the wall both poetically and metaphorically speak to what is no longer tangible or present. But they retain a vestige of their former selves.  The scratched in letters above the doorway further serve to remind the viewer that they are entering into a voyeuristic relationship with an abandoned property. I also enjoy this photograph purely from a formalistic perspective.  It’s a subtle composition in shadow and light, offsetting the opening to reveal another unexpected barrier wall.  The mystery is suspended by holding the viewer back, unable to see past the shallow space as we turn the corner.