W.M. Hunt

 #somereallygoodones,#latoyarubyfrazier, #braddock, #family, #steelmills

LaToya Ruby Frazier is smart.  She spoke in 2011 at the first edition of Look3, a modest thoughtful photography festival in Charlottesville VA; she put me and anyone else inthe audience who was paying attention that she intended to change the world with her photography.  The subject matter is herself, the women in her family and life in her childhood home Braddock, Pennsylvania, former site of a thriving steel mill.  She pictures disintegration and holds people accountable.   

The “Eighth Street Market” mage of the abandoned building speaks to me of America with an immediacy that eludes me in a great deal of earlier twentieth century like this, like that of Dorothea Lange who had her own brilliance nonetheless.  The strong verticals could evidence some strength but the interior is empty and there is no implied resilience, only an ominous shadow creeping up the left side of the frame.

This is what you see when you drive through America, grandeur that has rotted, former strength and handsomeness that has fallen into depressing neglect.  The architecture has the former nobility and classic stature of an Acropolis now in ruin.  This is part of a grand tradition in photography, depicting the Wonders of the World.

Her report has real sadness in it, a kind of heartache that makes you long for a childhood that may never existed anyway.  

Frazier’s work is part of a cruel legacy.  Her road trip takes her home, and its not pretty.  

©2021

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