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Dave Jordano Click here to visit the artist's website >>
Artist Statement These photographs are my reaction to all the negative press that Detroit has had to endure over the years. I wanted to see for myself what everyone was talking about, and like everyone else I was initially drawn to the same subjects in which other photographers were interested: the crumbling factory interiors, the empty lots and burned out houses that consume a third of the city, and the massive abandoned commercial infrastructure. It took me a week of shooting this kind of subject matter to make me realize that I was contributing nothing to a subject that most everyone already knew much about, especially those who had been living there for years. To counter this concern, I began looking at the various neighborhoods within the city and the people who live within them. This human condition, while troubled, struggling, and coping with the harsh reality of living in a post-industrial city that has fallen on the hardest of times, does thrive, and demonstrates that Detroit is not the city of death and decay that everyone had been reporting in the media, but one that showed signs of activity and movement. However, not withstanding the recent press about Detroit’s efforts to rebound from the depths of ruin, which is in all ways promising, my focus continues to rest on the current conditions that affect many of the poor and marginalized people whose fate will be drawn out in the ensuing months and years to come as Detroit continues to redefine and chart a new course for its history. My hope is that this work will convey in many ways that Detroit is a city made up of resilient, caring individuals who have persevered, all the while clinging to the vanished ideals of an urban oasis that once hailed itself as one of the most beautiful and prosperous cities in America, at one time a model city for all others to follow, but one which has now fallen from grace. This ongoing personal project is not about what’s been destroyed, but more importantly about what’s been left behind and those who are coping with it. Artist Bio Jordano’s work is included in the permanent collections of The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; the Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL; the Federal Reserve Bank; the Harris Bank Collection; and many corporate and private collections. The following galleries represent Jordano: Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA; Photoeye.com; and Stieglitz 19 Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium.
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