Industrial Revelations: Photographs by Michael Kenna of the Rouge and Other Sites
Detroit Institute of Arts
Through February 11, 1996
Photographs by Michael Kenna are featured in the exhibition Industrial Revelations: Photographs by Michael Kenna of the Rouge and Other Sites at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Included are approximately 60 of Michael Kenna's photographs of the Rouge Steel plant in Dearborn and 20 views of industrial sites in England.
This new series of photographs was inspired by Charles Sheeler's legendary photographs of the Rouge plant commissioned in 1927 by the Ford Motor Company. However, while Sheeler concentrated on the interior of the steel-making complex, Michael Kenna's work focuses on the exterior seen in views made at dawn, at dusk and during the night. His photographs are distinguished by their dynamic design, unusual viewpoints, and dramatic contrasts of light and shade.
Industrial smoke also plays a major role in Michael Kenna's work. In the exhibition catalog he comments, "I favor the power of suggestion over descriptive documentation and often use smoke, steam or mist in my work. These elements obscure details, simplify forms, strengthen foreground graphic shapes, and simultaneously tone down background distractions."
Born in a small industrial town in Lancashire, England, Michael Kenna, now based in San Francisco, has always felt at home in industrial environments. His striking and strangely beautiful views of the Rouge plant are contrasted with the photographs he made in the 1980s of nuclear plants in his native England.
THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS
5200 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 48202
