Andrew Moore’s large format color photographs provide a dramatic and shocking glimpse into the utter decay of America’s former fourth largest city – the result of the decades-long deindustrialization of American capitalism. The photographs, at times evoking the studied architectural detail of the images of Robert Polidori, journey through Detroit’s shuttered school buildings, interiors of long ago abandoned auto plants and offices, burned out neighborhoods and dilapidated once grand buildings.
Cass Technical High School, once a source of pride in Detroit’s educational system is a windowless shell, a wing of classrooms viewed from a courtyard that reads like a series of dioramas displaying twisted piles of desks and torn up books that suggest happier times gone by.
Ford’s River Rouge Complex, once the largest industrial facility in the world is a picked over skeleton scattered with debris from its former productive self. Neighborhoods such as Detroit’s East Side and Highland Park are depicted with ashen skies and muted colors in a post-apocalyptic state engaged in a losing battle against nature.
The photographs are haunting and profound in their portrayal of a city that is the most concentrated expression of an economic process that has transformed nearly the whole of America’s industrial landscape into crumbling collapse.