STATEMENT OF WORK

Artist’s Statement for Dennis Gordon

I've been drawn to abandoned buildings for as long as I can remember.  To me they stand as living art, forever changing as their natural deterioration proceeds. As a boy, the challenge and malice of breaking into forbidden places without getting caught and finding my own secret space was critical to me.  Later, when I became a firefighter in 1978 beginning my career in the South Bronx, entering and navigating vacant structures became both a full-time job and passion. The city was burning and there were endless daily fires in the thousands of vacant buildings.

Around the same time, I moved to the Lower East Side, surrounded by blocks of vacant tenements dating back to the late 1800’s/early 1900’s, some of the oldest in the city. Despite how dangerous this was, I spent much time inside exploring. Heroin was flooding the community. Those buildings provided a catalyst for the procuring and using of heroin . This was the foundation for my coming of age. The darkness that fell over me from my activities inside those structures would eventually become the vehicle for my spiritual evolution many years later.

As I began to study the history of NYC during the 20th century I began to understand why all the unnecessary destruction occurred. Developers were on a tear and spread their ideas without any concern of the consequences. NYC was once the largest industrial city in the United States. Developers Jacob Riis and Robert Moses wanted to remove the industry and tenement housing and create a pristine replacement. Unfortunately this development still continues today. The removal of industry meant the removal of jobs and spurred the impoverishment of the enormous immigrant community at that time. Real estate value in these communities plummeted and redlining by the banks in cahoots with the government was literally the match thrown in the gasoline.

Over the years my attraction to abandoned spaces grew and I travelled throughout the US and abroad seeking turn-of-the-century industries to explore and photograph.  These included mills, warehouses, foundries, loft buildings and factories. To me these industrial structures were what put the art in architecture. The loss of these structures has always troubled me deeply.  I was also exploring former institutions such as asylums, prisons, schools and hospitals. Foreclosed homes in decay still baffle me.

I have always found myself feeling extremely comfortable in the midst of the neglect and decay of these buildings. The abandonment, loneliness, and isolation inside the structures grounded me despite the risk. I discovered an escape from the boredom of inhabited spaces, growing lost within the wealth of bygone architecture and design. Here, I feel like I’m participating in some grand installation of living art. The decay is dynamic and the interiors will be different if I revisit them in a year. New levels of rust and mold.  Brick disintegrating and nature slowly prevailing, replacing manmade elements. Where some people see eyesores, I see the labor of architects, craftsmen, and assemblymen using complex machinery built as durably as the products it made. To me, each abandoned building tells a story from our past, and all these buildings tell a collective story of our present, of an era of greed when everything--from architecture to wares to art--is disposable, replaceable.   

My artwork today recreates and documents the wreckage of unchecked capitalism and real estate development. And as a memorial to the displaced persons who were the victims of this. I’m also trying to evoke the feelings of loneliness, decay and neglect one feels when inside these abandoned structures.