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Taken in the early 1980s, when the South Bronx had fallen into a state of near-total destruction, these images portray the poignant beauty of the remaining ruins as well as the stark reality of the particular place and time.
In the mid-1970s, an economic downturn combined with complex social and political pressures caused the gradual decline of the South Bronx. By the 1980s, crime, middle-class exodus, fires, and the lack of public services had taken their toll—little was left standing.
The photographs Ray Mortenson took during this time were intended to present an objective, wide-ranging survey of the devastated urban landscape.
Compelled by the natural disarray of ignored places, he has been exploring industrial zones, neglected urban neighborhoods, and isolated natural areas along the metropolitan corridor of the northeastern United States for nearly fifty years. His profiles of places are made using a variety of camera formats and photographic processes. Darkroom prints range in size from intimate contacts to mural sized multi-paneled pieces. Over the past four decades he has also produced a series of unique or small editioned artist books.
Mortenson’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the US since the 1980s and is held in the permanent collections of more than forty museums in the US, Canada, France, and Japan.