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Postcards from Detroit are a trendy fascination at the moment. Actually any photographs are fascinating, for a while at least. But images from a ruined city fascinate because in their graphic directness they strike a primordial chord that seems held on sustain throughout the current news cycle. Like pictures of car accidents, they are effective communication. They hook. With the advent of digital cameras and scanners, gritty images by struggling Detroit artists are now seen as a new form of urban porn. And seen by a lot of people. No surprises, you would think with the Internet.
This new series by Detroit artist Jef Bourgeau peels away at these layered stereotypes to the extent that, well, the images are just brighter and more poetic. They are pushed and tinkered toward art, but not at all dragging their feet. One is still looking at hard core snapshots of a forgotten city, but perhaps this time in their proper context: without the usual hype and with the lights turned on.
And yes, this work has been thrown back into the very public display that these times seem to crave for such invasive acts. Maybe there is little difference between an artist showing images of city life in a staged death throe and the actual thing. We seem to be living in an age of exhibitionism, driven by a compulsion to be "bad" and to display all that makes us peculiarly so to an unsuspecting, but insatiable, public.
- Jessica Hopkins, Art Room Gallery
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The sound of the gunshot has been replaced by a recording of a pile driver as it helped demolish Detroit's Statler Hotel (1914-2006).
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Jef Bourgeau
e: detroitmona_aol.com
w: www.jefbourgeau.com
