Mini Lower East Side

Over the years, I've profiled the work of a few miniaturists on this blog (Alan Wolfson, Randy Hage, Nicholas Buffon), artists who render the city smaller -- and thus preserve some facsimile of what was.

This week, Sensitive Skin magazine shares the work of Dennis Gordon, who created a whole Lower East Side in miniature -- or, at least, a dreamlike representation of what the Lower East Side once was.



Here's Gordon:

"I felt extremely comfortable in the midst of neglect and decay. The abandonment, loneliness, and isolation inside the structures grounded me despite the risk (though the buildings were abandoned by society, I was hardly alone). I discovered an escape from the boredom of inhabited space, and grew lost within the wealth of bygone architecture and design. I felt like I was participating in some grand installation of living art. The decay was dynamic, the interiors different if I revisit them in a year. New levels of rust and mold. Brick disintegrating and nature slowly prevailing, ailanthus trees growing through floors, replacing man-made elements. Where some people saw eyesores, I saw the labor of architects, craftsmen, and assemblymen using complex machinery built as durably as the products they 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."

Read more and see more at Sensitive Skin.