Andrew Moore's Detroit Disassembled at the Queens Museum of Art

The Queens Museum of Art is pleased to host Detroit Disassembled: Photographs by Andrew Moore, organized by the Akron Art Museum. The exhibition of thirty large scale photographs will be on view August 28th 2011 - January 15th 2012, with an opening celebration on September 18th.
During 2008 and 2009, Moore spent 3 months in Detroit. Once the epitome of American industrial wealth and might, the Motor City has faced declining population and economic distress for half a century. From an abandoned chemistry lab at Cass Technical High School to a house on the East Side’s Walden Street entirely covered with ivy to the bright green moss covering the floor of Ford Motor Company’s former headquarters, Moore’s photographs depict the remains of an eroding US industrial base amidst a strangely beautiful sense of decay. These highly detailed color photographs of the city, some of which are as large as 62 x 78 inches, belong to an artistic tradition of depicting ruins that began in the 17th century. Moore’s exquisitely realized visions of architecture overtaken by vegetation remind contemporary viewers that our own, familiar culture is subject to the forces of entropy and the eternal strength of nature.
In order to contextualize Detroit Disassembled within Moore’s career, selections from his earlier series on Russia and Cuba have been brought together in a small ancillary exhibition on the second floor. In these works, as in Detroit Disassembled, time and nature have reasserted themselves over architecture and domestic space.
Detroit Disassembled: Photographs by Andrew Moore will be accompanied by extensive public programming, with talks and workshops on photography, beauty, and urbanism inspired by the past and future of Detroit.
This exhibition is organized by the Akron Art Museum and made possible by a major gift from Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell with additional support from the John A. McAlonan Fund of Akron Community Foundation. The accompanying publication is underwritten by Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell with additional funding from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.
The presentation of this exhibition at the Queens Museum of Art is made possible through the generosity of the Charina Endowment Fund and The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation