DETROIT — Nancy Mitchnick’s representations of places — whether they refer to actual locations or states of mind — ricochet out into the real world, conveying a sense of how a place looks based on how it feels.
ruin porn
Posted inArt
The Radioactive Ruins of the Cold War’s Secret Cities
When Nadav Kander, an Israeli-born, London-based photographer who is interested in the “aesthetics of destruction,” learned of these secret cities, he traveled to eastern Kazakstan to document their ruins.
Posted inIn Brief
The Artist Who Moved a Detroit House to Europe Left a Mess Behind [UPDATED]
Last month, Berlin-based Ryan Mendoza pissed off a lot of people when he tore down an abandoned house in Detroit and shipped the structure off for display at this year’s Art Rotterdam.
Posted inOpinion
Artist Relocates Abandoned Detroit Home, Dropping it at the Corner of Appropriation and Ruin Porn
DETROIT — You can’t really talk about expatriate American artist Ryan Mendoza’s “The White House” project without talking about appropriation.
Posted inArt
Quiet and Haunting Photographs of Our Modern Ruins
Our fascination with ruins is nothing new.
Posted inArt
A Portrait of a Chinese Ghost Town on the Verge of New Life
The district of Kangbashi in Inner Mongolia, China, is famous for its emptiness.
Posted inArt
Relics of a Future Environmental Collapse
Lina Puerta makes ruin porn on an unusually intimate scale.
Posted inArt
Populating the Empty Spaces of Detroit
What’s most often missing from pictures of Detroit are people. They don’t quite work in the landscape of ruin porn, enamored as it of empty, decaying spaces that seem beautiful precisely because they’re devoid of the life they once had. Showing people would suggest that Detroit is more than just a string of abandoned tableaux waiting to be photographed by the next person passing through.
Posted inArt
Detroit Is Not a Utopia
I don’t actively seek out photographs and films documenting Detroit’s decay. Detroit ruin porn could be cast as a useful reminder that no city is invincible, but in recent years the sheer quantity of photographs coming out of Detroit hasn’t felt remotely empowering. The images of the destruction are sad and offer no sense of a desire to change the problem, or suggestions for how that could even be done. However, I wanted to give the new documentary Detropia, made by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, the creators of the bone-chilling documentary Jesus Camp, a chance. I figured if anyone could investigate and show a Detroit outsider what it means to be in Detroit, it would be them.
Posted inOpinion
Photographer Looks Out On the Edge of Detroit’s High Rises
LOS ANGELES — Standing atop buildings in skyscraper-bound cities like New York and Hong Kong, we’re bound to look out. And across. And somewhat downward. But never down, like straight down. Detroit-based photographer Dennis Maitland took a different approach.
Posted inOpinion
Required Reading
This week, droit de suite, art conservation, Daniel Burren and Allora & Calzadilla, ruin porn, hacking Ikea, top auction prices of 2011, the world’s first spaceport, Penguin books logo and architecture tattoos.