Things Fall Apart

Related Content

• Farmer Says State Shouldn't Force Him to Raise Chickens in Comfort
  April 16, 2012
• Happy Birthday, Cesar
  April 18, 2012
• Muni Money: Caltrain Connection Could Fund Central Subway
  May 23, 2012
• The Summer Movie Rises: Twenty Films to Watch Out For
  May 16, 2012
• Concert Fans: Nob Hill Residents Would Like to See Less of You
  May 8, 2012

More About

• Katherine Westerhout
• Industries
• Grain and Oilseed Farming
• Crime and Law
• Prisons

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Brand-new buildings get photographed for glossy real estate brochures and corporate literature. It’s not art, exactly, but it nets a paycheck. Add a handful of hard-worn decades, the total failure of an American industry, and photographer Katherine Westerhout, however, and you’ll end up with some achingly beautiful art. In a 2008 exhibit in S.F., Westerhout featured large-scale pictures of a smattering of Detroit’s famed abandoned buildings — an aquarium, a boat club, a few theaters. It was strong stuff, freighted with meaning; the buildings were beautiful in their last days, old stars slowly falling apart, with little chance for recovery. For “Rust Belt,” she adds Buffalo and Philadelphia to the mix, which have no shortage of blasted structures — grain elevators, Eastern State Penitentiary — ready for one last close up.
Jan. 16-Feb. 27, 2010