* All images used with permission from artist. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
(3.49 - 90 votes)About “Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption” (top):
Exploring around our country’s shipping ports and industrial yards, where the accumulated detritus of our consumption is exposed to view like eroded layers in the Grand Canyon, I find evidence of a slow-motion apocalypse in progress. I am appalled by these scenes, and yet also drawn into them with awe and fascination. The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical and ironic, and even darkly beautiful; for me its consistent feature is a staggering complexity.
About “In Katrina’s Wake: Portraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster” (bottom):
My hope is that these images might encourage some reflection on the part that we each play, and the loss that we all suffer, when a preventable catastrophe of this magnitude happens to the people of our own country. Katrina has illuminated our interconnectedness, and it makes our personal accountability as members of a conscious society ever more difficult to deny.
Next Artist: Alexey Titarenko
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This is Garbage!
Comment by double T — February 23, 2009
Wow. It’s as if you snuck onto the set of Wall-E and snapped some pictures! Except this is clearly real. All too real. Scary. Amazing photography, by the way. How high do these masses of waste stand?
Comment by Jonathan — February 23, 2009
while neither one is great to look at, i am an amateur photographer and i love that he is willing to photograph subject matter that we as americans would love to ignore. i mean after all, away is a place. it really allows us the chance to consider where our discarded, unwanted, no longer new possessions go when we cast them aside. i think both photos are beautiful examples of iconic american culture.
Comment by kriss — February 23, 2009
el capitalismo es: mucho ,mucho plastico, carton , colores,y contaminacion auditiva y visual muchas . muchas cosas innesesarias para la vida, muchos, muchisimos alimentos superprocesados y sin contenido nutricional ,muchas ignorancia financiera y muchisimo control de la salud por parte de las super corporaciones.
Y por supuesto la industria del entretenimiento que lucra con el aburrimiento inculcado y producido por la tecnologia de hoy.
En fin el capitalismo es la forma mas concluyente de describir al hombre natural , el animal autodestructivo.
Civilizemonos.
Comment by andres f. — February 23, 2009
great stuff.
Comment by m — February 23, 2009
About time somebody focused on the junk in our society. The texture is a no fail: Solid texture with lots of detail. Some variation but basically the image is basically the same. The difference is if it is crushed cars or hurricane detritus.
Comment by rsadler — February 23, 2009
Chris – I can’t decide which is more intriguing: your photographic art or your creative writing. Beautifully exhibited!
Comment by Anonymous — February 23, 2009
I like the second one better. :D
Comment by Unknown — February 23, 2009
Umm…what are they? Installation photographs? Installations? Collage on canvas? Kinda interesting, but maybe would make more sense in the context of the entire piece??? Or umm..well…what IS the entire piece?
Comment by Anonymous — February 23, 2009
Looking at these images is like being forced to stare full-on at something you’ve been trying to keep cloistered at the back of your head. It festers, and grows, and becomes an overwhelming panorama of garishness and decay. It’s like staring at greed, or guilt.
Comment by Jen — February 23, 2009