Sure, photographs of vacant buildings are infinitely artsy-fartsy but it’s the story of how those buildings became vacated that can puncture one’s heart. From a human level, it’s the sting that comes when coworkers drop like flies. Where folks once worked, laughed, celebrated, went to lunch together—now only ghostly buildings like empty, gutted, carcasses remain. One, two, then an entire block, gone. Whole towns in some cases, whose livelihood depended on wires once connected to the beating heart of computers. Stripped and ravaged, these images are increasingly becoming a thing of familiarity in our dying economy. Pretty fucking depressing. But hey, it’s art!
Fri., Jan. 9, 7 p.m., 2009
