June 11th, 2012

Wedding Portrait (prop), 2008
Fascinated by the aggressive and over-the-top building and marketing of real estate in Arizona, Scott Lizama began photographing the extravagant interiors of model homes for sale. While photographing this series, the housing market collapsed, and the visual evidence of the Arizona construction boom was everywhere. The development companies, who had once tried to build as many houses as possible into their purchased plots, had gone bankrupt. These companies abandoned their projects mid-construction, forcing home owners with devalued new purchases to live next to half-built projects, and many acres of land with subdivision infrastructure in place, but no dwellings on them. These photographs depict both the crass facade of material wealth used to sell these houses, and the remains of what the housing market collapse left behind.
Scott Lizama is a photographer and PhD student in environmental psychology at the City University of New York and an adjunct faculty member at Parsons The New School for Design in New York city.
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Tags: Abandonment, Arizona, City University of New York, Developers, environmental psychology, Exurbs, financial crisis, foreclosure, mortgage crisis, Parsons The New School for Design, Real Estate Investors, Scott Lizama, speculators, Suburbs, Urban Design
Posted 12:00 pm ET in Architecture, Conceptual, Documentary, Fine Art, Interiors, Landscape, News, Outdoor, Personal, Photojournalism by Frank Webster | 3 Comments »
April 23rd, 2009

© Stan Gaz/Courtesy ClampArt, New York City
Origin (Arizona Impact 5), 2007, photographed by Stan Gaz from his Impact Series.
During his youth, photographer Stan Gaz was facinated by the notion of meteorites. Thus, he recently began to photograph meteorite impact structures and their surrounding landscapes. Many of these locations are sacred to various tribal communities and have a variety of stories and beliefs attributed to them. Although many versions exist, most relate to the notion of the craters possessing secrets of mankind’s origin.
An opening reception for Stan Gaz: Impact will be held on Thursday, April 30, from 6–8pm, at ClampArt in New York City, the exhibit runs through June 6.
Tags: Arizona, ClampArt, Crater, Impact, Meteorite, Stan Gaz
Posted 12:00 pm ET in Aerial, Architecture, Documentary, Fine Art, Science/Nature by Darren Ching | 4 Comments »