[De]Composition is a photographic study of abandoned structures made between 2015-2017. Windows are used in the compositions as frames to juxtapose industrial decay with the new ecologies inhabiting these places. The images were captured on 35mm black and white film and printed with traditional silver gelatin process, then exhibited several times at art shows around the Salt Lake Valley, coalescing with my first solo exhibition at Art Access Gallery in April 2017.
Having just dropped out of photo school and quit my job as a ski photographer, many of the images were taken in Latin America while trying to “find myself” as many 20-year-olds do. Upon returning, my friend Denny Silversey and I made a darkroom in a very dusty garage in the backyard of his rented house, developed the prints, and exhibited them in his shed in a co-curated exhibit titled “On-Paper: A House Show“.
A few years after this series was completed, I learned of an obscure photo series called Hotel Palenque by land artist Robert Smithson to which [De]Composition bears an uncanny resemblence. This series was only shared with the public once, in 1969 during a lecture in the same building I studied in for both my BFA and MFA at the University of Utah. Smithson’s series also documents decomposing hotel buildings in Chiapas, Mexico. The only real record of it is this bootleg recording of the lecture.
Doug Tolman 