The Ruins of Detroit: Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre exhibit at Wilmotte Gallery

The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Thursday, March 28, 2024


The Ruins of Detroit: Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre exhibit at Wilmotte Gallery
Eastown Theatre.



LONDON.- Tristan Hoare and Julien Dobbs-Higginson present a selection of photographs from the much acclaimed body of work The Ruins of Detroit (published: Steidl, 2010). Photographs from this series have previously been exhibited in Ville Fertile, Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine, Paris and Metropolis, Noorderlicht Photofestival, Groningen. They will be shown in the UK for the first time.

The Ruins of Detroit is a five year collaboration between French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. Together they have documented Detroit’s abandoned buildings, thus bringing to light the current state of ‘Motor City’ through a cinematic series of starkly beautiful photographs. Shooting with a large format, custom made camera, taking advantage of natural light and using long exposures, the images embody the unique atmosphere of each location. Marchand and Meffre’s work retains a formal quality and is conceived as a document, giving the viewer a surreal glimpse of Detroit’s former glory. Like the great civilizations of the past, we interpret them through their remains.

Once one of the wealthiest cities in the world, Detroit produced the single most important consumer product of the modern age; the automobile. At its peak, it was the world capital of car production and home to two million people. One factory, The Ford River Rouge Plant, employed more than 90,000 workers and its assembly line extended for almost a mile. This monumental success attracted the great architects of the period and the eclecticism of the city’s building programme reflected every fashion of the day.

Yet the American dream soon turned into a nightmare. The 1950s saw machines replace workers and, in the following decades, hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost as the international car market changed beyond recognition and foreign car manufacturers successfully competed for their share of the US market.

The images bring to mind a Biblical disaster; it is as if all Detroit’s citizens had fled. The abandoned factories and buildings, vacant schools and derelict ballrooms are a poignant reminder of the fragility of the modern world and, possibly on a different scale, of a now ‘broken America’. These beautiful but disturbing images look un-compromisingly at the remains of a once global centre of capitalism and its extraordinary descent into ruin. One is reminded of Detroit's prophetic motto:

Speramus meliora, resurget cineribus (“We hope for better things, which shall rise from the ashes”)

“Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension.” Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre










Today's News

February 25, 2012

Picasso's "Guernica" undergoes medical check at the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid

Ti-Ameny-Net: An ancient mummy, an Egyptian woman, and modern science opens in Richmond

Shipwrecked silver begins voyage back to Spain on two Spanish military C-130 cargo planes

Sotheby's to offer Roy Lichtenstein's iconic masterpiece Sleeping Girl from 1964 in New York

Exhibition of new works by British-born Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare MBE at James Cohan Gallery

United States pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale to be presented by the Bronx Museum

Cindy Sherman film still to lead Sotheby's mid-season Contemporary art sale

The Ruins of Detroit: Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre exhibit at Wilmotte Gallery

Marilyn Monroe portraits featured in Swann Galleries' auction of fine photographs & photobooks

First exhibition in France to cover every stage of Berenice Abbott's career opens at Jeu de Paume

Group exhibition of collage and paper-based works opens at Stephen Haller Gallery

Phillips de Pury & Co. announces highlights from its March Contemporary art evening auction

Barack Obama 'HOPE' poster artist Shepard Fairey pleads guilty in New York City

Cooper-Hewitt releases dataset to broaden access to online collection

Asia Week New York capitalizes on surging world market for Asian art and antiques

First major UK exhibition of the New York based artist Charline von Heyl opens at Tate Liverpool

The National Air and Space Museum announces new images show recent geologic activity on the moon

Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination at thr Frist Center for the Visual Arts

Pennsylvania museum automaton has link to Scorsese's 'Hugo'




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful