Article
Teach with Collections: Michael Kenna, The Rouge, Study 59, Dearborn, Michigan
From its origins‚—developed by Henry Ford, working with his house architect Albert Kahn, for the Ford Motor Company between 1917 and 1927‚—the Rouge became a vast complex containing miles of railroad tracks, blast furnaces, coke ovens, a foundry, and enormous storage areas for holding the raw materials to be used in manufacturing‚—a veritable city unto itself for the industrial age. Across more than a dozen visits between 1992 and 1995, Kenna sought to depict the enormity of the Rouge, often under arduous conditions of extreme cold. His work at the Rouge employs a number of key strategies: an interest in photographing under low-light conditions and even at night; a concern for reflections and the image doubling they create; a fascination with the contrasts between the strong linearity of the built environment and the effacing atmosphere around it; and the absence of people.
Conversation prompts Kenna used radical cropping effects and an extreme point of view for this scene. What effects are created by these compositional devices, and how might the effect of the work have been different had Kenna taken the photograph from a head-on perspective?
There are no human figures in Kenna's series of photographs of the Rouge; how do you read the relationship between humans and the environment in these photographs?
Conversation prompts Kenna used radical cropping effects and an extreme point of view for this scene. What effects are created by these compositional devices, and how might the effect of the work have been different had Kenna taken the photograph from a head-on perspective?
There are no human figures in Kenna's series of photographs of the Rouge; how do you read the relationship between humans and the environment in these photographs?
