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Gallery: Dave Jordano & Aaron Rothman
Detroit, As Is
Bey-Bey with Memorial Car, Eastside, Detroit, 2012. A young man stands in front of a car memorializing the death of his mother, who died from an asthma attack at the age of 34. [Photo by Dave Jordano] Click image to enlarge.
Earlier this year, Places published a series of rephotographs of Detroit by Dave Jordano, who in 2010 returned with his camera to sites he had documented as a student in the 1970s. “That these pairs of then-and-now images are by the same photographer,” I wrote, “implicates us in the changes they depict: this has happened — is still happening — in our lifetimes.” Jordano’s work anchors us in the present moment, counteracting the aestheticizing and mythologizing effects of much Detroit ruin photography.
Detroit looms large in our national consciousness in part because it so readily symbolizes larger changes in contemporary American society: the end of the nation’s industrial dominance, the failures of 20th-century urbanism, the inability (or unwillingness) of government to maintain vital infrastructure, the general sense that an era of prosperity peaked years ago and is quickly waning. And as Andrew Herscher argued last week, the city challenges us to rethink longstanding assumptions about the connections between urban viability and economic growth. In many ways, Detroit is both the ultimate case study of challenges facing American cities, as well as a laboratory for exploring innovative change. Yet those who search for the larger meaning of Detroit — taking the city as an emblem for big, generalized ideas — risk losing sight of the reality and the specificity of the place. As Jerry Herron wrote, in Places, “Maybe it’s not so much a question of what this all means; maybe it’s more a question of how to make meaning here, how to take responsibility for seeing this spectacular place in a way that doesn’t trivialize or misrepresent the lessons to be learned.”
Dave Jordano has taken this responsibility head on, photographing Detroit over the past several years for an extended body of work titled Detroit Unbroken Down. Jordano’s Detroit is adamantly not a symbol of something, not an abstraction. It is a place where people live. Focusing on particulars of the city’s places and people, Jordano’s photographs are not unduly optimistic — they are as unflinching in portraying the city’s decrepitude as any “ruin porn” — but they show the city in the present tense, alive, if struggling. The photographs assert that what really matters about Detroit is the fate of individuals. Each image is a slice of a specific story: people working against entropy to carve out a space for themselves, maintain a livelihood, hold together a sense of community. Whether Detroit still has the ability to let these individuals build something there is an open question, and that, it seems, is where the city’s failure or success should be judged.
— Aaron Rothman
Editors' Note
For related content on Places, see also Detroit Re-Photography, by Dave Jordano and Aaron Rothman;
The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit, by Andrew Herscher; Borderland/Borderama/Detroit, The Forgetting Machine, and The Last Pedestrians, by Jerry Herron; Living with Mies: The Towers at Lafayette Park, by Placement, and Lafayette Park: Living in Ordered Exhibition, by Melissa Dittmer; Writing on the Wall, by David Clements and Douglas Haller; and Detroit: Syncopating an Urban Landscape, by Dan Pitera.
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While I share your concern about the dominant visual representation of Detroit, I wouldn't include Jordano's work in the negative category. Jordano's images clearly don't dwell on death, and they certainly don't argue that Detroit is "beyond repair" or "lost forever." On the contrary, he is producing a complex and dignified portrait of Detroit that includes the range of positive and negative examples of life in the city.
Take another look at the essay, and I think you'll find that "repair" and "revitalization" are clearly represented through families fixing up homes, starting businesses, maintaining longstanding firms and working to improve their communities. The essay doesn't sugar coat the city's story, but it makes clear that Detroit has a past, present and future.
Take another look at the essay, and I think you'll find that "repair" and "revitalization" are clearly represented through families fixing up homes, starting businesses, maintaining longstanding firms and working to improve their communities. The essay doesn't sugar coat the city's story, but it makes clear that Detroit has a past, present and future.
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ABOUT THE SLIDESHOW
A portfolio of photographs from Dave Jordano's ongoing project, Detroit Unbroken Down.View Slideshow >>
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aaron Rothman’s photographs, video and installation artwork explore perceptual experience of space in both natural and built environments.More Bio >>
Dave Jordano is a Chicago-based photographer; he was born and raised in Detroit.More Bio >>
DESIGN OBSERVER JOBS
MORE ON Detroit
Motor City Breakdown
On Places, Jerry Herron looks at the troubled portrait of Detroit — and its spectacular decline — in recent books and films.
The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit
On Places, Andrew Herscher challenges the usual view of Detroit's decline: "What if Detroit has not only fallen apart and emptied out but also become a new sort of urban formation that only appears depleted through the lens of conventional urbanism?"
Lafayette Park: Living in Ordered Exhibition
On Places, Melissa Dittmer describes the experience of living in Mies van der Rohe's Lafayette Park in Detroit, where the glass-and-steel architecture encourages "a sense of intimacy that fosters community."
The Last Pedestrians
On Places, Jerry Herron traces the intersecting lives of architect Albert Kahn, artist Diego Rivera and industrialist Edsel Ford — and how they all shaped the visioin of Detroit as industrial powerhouse.
Living with Mies: The Towers at Lafayette Park
On Places, photographer Corine Vermeulen and the design collective Placement offer a glimpse of life in Lafayette Park, the Mies van der Rohe-designed residential complex in Detroit.
Detroit Re-Photography
On Places, the Detroit Rephotography Survey, by Dave Jordano, documents the same sites in the early 1970s and 2010.
The Forgetting Machine: Notes Toward a History of Detroit
On Places, Jerry Herron tracks the decline and fall of his home city of Detroit, from ruin porn to the demolition of Hudson's to Henry Ford's first horseless carriage.
Writing on the Wall
On Places, a portfolio of photographs by Detroit local David Clements, of some of the many hand-painted signs and murals found throughout the Motor City.
This Is Flint, Michigan
On Places, Wes Janz probes the ongoing decline of Flint, Michigan, and wonders about the role of the architect in a city where there's more demolition than design.
Detroit: Syncopating an Urban Landscape
On Places, Dan Pitera, of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center, curates a portfolio of projects by artists, architects and activists who are reshaping the city's abandoned landscapes.
Borderland/Borderama/Detroit: Part 3
On Places, the third and final installment of "Borderland/Borderama/Detroit," an exploration of the rise and fall — and persistence — of Detroit, and what it means in American culture, by writer and historian Jerry Herron.
Borderland/Borderama/Detroit: Part 2
On Places, part 2 of "Borderland/Borderama/Detroit," an exploration of the rise and fall — and persistence — of Detroit, and what it means in American culture, by writer and historian Jerry Herron.
Borderland/Borderama/Detroit: Part 1
On Places, the first installment of "Borderland/Borderama/Detroit," an exploration of the rise and fall — and persistence — of Detroit, and what it means in American culture, by writer and historian Jerry Herron.
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The fact is, Detroit is one of the few cities that didn't diversify it's economy very well--not the norm for America--all of its chips where in the car industry. But it still has other businesses. Other cities in America continue to thrive based on being able to adapt--new technology, new business, new economies.
These images reflect our cultural obsession with decay, reflecting our fear of death.
If we are going to focus on Detroit (and not, say, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Memphis, St. Louis or any city) we should at least try to find out who is trying to revitalize it. Or at least give a broader impression of what Detroit is, not only seeking out the "beauty in the death." Or we can just reinforce the impression that this is a place beyond repair, lost forever.
12.06.12 at 05:30