Rust

The works of the artists in the exhibition present complementary perspectives on industry in the Northeast and Midwest from the late 1970s to the present, against the backdrop of broader social changes in the face of drastic industrial decline. “Rust” brings together three perspectives, united by a desire to share an often overlooked narrative. Capturing the industrial landscape in various stages of decay, their positions visually weave together the complex realities of change over time.

Bernd and Hilla Becher‘s work is characterised by a minimalist presentation that emphasises form and architecture. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, they made several trips to the Rust Belt and documented the obsolete industries in the area. The Beckers’ plan to live as custodians and preservers of the industrial landscape, and to catalogue and order their photographs, is in stark contrast to the entropy they portray.
In the early 1970s, Stephen Shore and Hilla Becher developed an artistic friendship that influenced each other. Interested in this same pivotal moment in history, Shore tells the story by focusing on the pressure exerted on the people and towns of the Rust Belt in a series of photographs originally commissioned by Fortune magazine in 1977 for the article ‘Hard Times Come to Steeltown’.

Working more recently, LaToya Ruby Frazier examines the political, social and economic ramifications of the ongoing crises in the Rust Belt. Her practice is rooted in her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania, a once thriving suburb of Pittsburgh, which also becomes her subject. Her photographic project, The Notion of Family (2001-2014), portrays three generations – her, her mother and her grandmother – against the backdrop of an omnipresent disease that intertwines economic racism and post-industrial decay.