News Archives – Page 17 of 42 – LaToya Ruby Frazier

LaToya Ruby Frazier Looks Beyond Blue-Collar Stereotypes

November 27, 2019

Hyperallergic
by Laura Raicovich

In The Last Cruze, the artist hones in on the vast inequities that persist in US society, as well as the tender relationships that enable survival and persistence in spite of them.

LaToya Ruby Frazier, *The Last Cruze* (installation view) at the Renaissance Society, 2019
Photo: Useful Art Services

CHICAGO

In her exhibition, The Last Cruze LaToya Ruby Frazier presents a deep dive into lives of factory workers in Lordstown, Ohio, still reeling from General Motor’s decision to “unallocate” (read: effectively close) the local plant whose production of the eponymous sedan had guaranteed their livelihoods. At the Renaissance Society, Frazier installed over 60 photographs from this new body of work, alongside texts and other elements that portray the resulting state of limbo, as workers must decide to accept relocation, or lose their jobs, pensions, and benefits.

Frazier’s work has always offered an unflinching sense of intimacy and directness; it parses the violent aftermath of late-stage capitalism and racism, even as it highlights the resiliency of affected communities. In The Last Cruze, she unsentimentally preserves the stories of union reps, assembly-line workers, managers, workers in adjacent industries, and those of their families and children.

Installed on a series of orange-red panels that hang from the ceiling, the exhibition is immediately reminiscent of the assembly line. Panels of texts and images are hung close together, leaving little space to navigate between each, positioning the viewer in close proximity to the people Frazier has so sensitively photographed, and only inches from the details they relayed to her about their lives in the wake of an economic and social undoing. The gallery’s chapel-like space is further accentuated by the different hues of blue chosen for the walls and ceiling panels, as well as by several large scale prints installed high above the red assembly-line.

Courtesy of: HYPERALLERGIC

TED Talk at “We The Future “

November 20, 2019

A creative solution for the water crisis in Flint, Michigan

Artist LaToya Ruby Frazier spent five months living in Flint, Michigan, documenting the lives of those affected by the city’s water crisis for her photo essay “Flint is Family.” As the crisis dragged on, she realized it was going to take more than a series of photos to bring relief. In this inspiring, surprising talk, she shares the creative lengths she went to in order to bring free, clean water to the people of Flint.

This TED talk was presented at “We the Future,” a special event in partnership with the Skoll Foundation and the United Nations Foundation.

Courtesy of: TED.com

Photo: Ryan Lash / TED

LaToya Ruby Frazier Puts a Face on the US Labour Crisis

November 19, 2019

Frieze Magazine
by Ian Bourland

The artist’s moving portraits of ‘unallocated’ auto workers in Lordstown, Ohio, on view at the Renaissance Society, celebrate the power of unions as job losses hit US manufacturing

During the late summer of 2019, some thirty General Motors plants were idled across the US during the strike of 49,000 members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union – the largest such stoppage in half a century. At stake were matters of equity for new workers, better wages and the security of health coverage. The American auto industry and its supply chains are crucial to the economies of the ‘rust belt’ states of the Midwest, and at the centre of debates around free trade, offshoring, and the future of labour in the country. In a bargain that ended the strike, UAW assented to the shuttering of three plants, including the hulking Lordstown Assembly in eastern Ohio. The latter has been in operation since the middle of last century and, until March 2019, produced the compact Chevrolet Cruze.

The photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier was on hand as the last Cruze was assembled and later transported to a dealership in nearby Boardman, Ohio. In 2018, the year the 3,000 members of the local UAW chapters 1112 and 1714 merged, Frazier began a larger project of collaboration and advocacy for the workers. She has dedicated her current exhibition of 67 photographs and one video work at the Renaissance Society and a portfolio for The New York Times to raising awareness about the imminent decimation of a community and telling the stories of a place that once exemplified the ‘American Dream’.

Courtesy of: Frieze Magazine

Artist’s Lordstown photos are a call to action —

November 11, 2019

‘The workers are the heroes’

Detroit Free Press
by Jamie L. LaReau

Photographer and artist LaToya Ruby Frazier prepares to fly over GM’s Lordstown Assembly Plant to photograph it for a photo essay on GM closing the plant. (Photo: LaToya Ruby Frazier)

LaToya Ruby Frazier’s initial encounter with General Motors involved water, not cars.

About five years ago, GM was first to complain that corrosion, caused by high levels of chloride in the Flint water, was rusting engine blocks at its Flint Engine Operations.

“They were immediately shifted off the Flint River to the Flint township water, which was not contaminated,” said Frazier, an artist and professor of photography associated with the Art Institute of Chicago who was a 2015 MacArthur fellow. “It made me realize that corporations have access to more basic human rights than people do.”

Frazier spent four years in Flint photographing the impact of the bad water on its residents’ health.

GM would get her attention again on Nov. 26, 2018. That day, GM said it would cease operations at five of its plants in North America.

“My heart dropped. I immediately became very concerned for those workers and their families,” Frazier said. “I felt it was my duty and obligation to be there for the workers.”

Frazier did just that, spending nine months in Lordstown, Ohio, photo-documenting GM’s closure of its Lordstown Assembly plant — which GM sold Thursday to an electric truck start-up.

GM did not cooperate with her, but she still managed to capture 67 evocative photos of UAW members that reveal how their lives were forever altered when the last Chevrolet Cruze car rolled off the line in March and GM shut the doors to the plant.

The photos are part of an exhibit called “The Last Cruze” at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. It runs through Dec. 1. Next, it goes to the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University.

Frazier’s ultimate goal is to bring the exhibit to the Motor City, in part because of the rich history of union activism and civil rights here.

“Artists function best at keeping history alive,” said Frazier. “This (Lordstown) exhibit is a monument, a testament and a memorial to Lordstown, to UAW Local 1112 and to the United Auto Workers’ legacy.”

Courtesy of: Detroit Free Press

Bryan Stevenson’s Moral Clarity

November 4, 2019

The Wall Street Journal Magazine
by Donovan X. Ramsey

The human rights lawyer, whose memoir is the basis for the forthcoming film ‘Just Mercy,’ has devoted his life to fighting for the convicted and the condemned.

LaToya photographed Bryan Stevenson for the Wall Street Journal’s 2019 Innovators issue. Bryan and LaToya were both recipients of the Gordon Parks Award in 2016.

In mid-September, human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson took the stage at the 30th-anniversary gala for the Equal Justice Initiative, the Montgomery, Alabama–based nonprofit he founded to provide legal representation to individuals who have been wrongfully convicted, unfairly sentenced or subject to prison abuse. The attendees assembled in a hotel ballroom in Midtown Manhattan were a mix of philanthropists, scholars and attorneys. The poet Elizabeth Alexander, who read at President Obama’s first inauguration, was there, as was musician Jon Batiste. Most knew what EJI does and who Stevenson is. They’d likely heard him…

Courtesy of: The Wall Street Journal Magazine

Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: GM Plant Closing

November 1, 2019

Professor David Harvey talks about the work of photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier who documents the news of the Lordstown, Ohio plant closing and the impact it had on the workers, families and community at large.

Courtesy of: Democracy at Work