The American photographer
David Maisel writes:
Santuary and the Modern Metropolis
In his book “Warped Space,” the architectural theorist Anthony Vidler speaks of the “paranoiac space of modernism,” a space which is “mutated into a realm of panic, where all limits and boundaries become blurred…” These words come to mind when considering the urban aerial images of Los Angeles and its periphery shown here, excerpted from my photographic project called “Oblivion.”
Certain spatial fears seem endemic to the modern metropolis, and Los Angeles defines this term in ways that no other American city can approximate. This amorphous skein of strip malls and gated developments, highway entrance and exit ramps, lays unfurled over the landscape like a sheet over a recalcitrant cadaver. Surely the earth is dead beneath the sheer weight and breadth of this built form?
Like a early-warning to the Toronto region, the following images are from Maisel's series, "Oblivion."
[email this story] Posted by R Ouellette on 01/13 at 07:47 AM
