Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre are two French photographers who are best known for their joint documentation of urban ruins. Their photography of abandoned buildings captures the process of decay and illustrates the rise and fall of our economies and societies.
Read MoreYves Marchand and Romain Meffre currently live and work in Paris, France.
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre were born in the 1980s in the suburbs of Paris. The two artists met through a mutual interest in contemporary ruins. In 2002, they began to collaborate, discovering urban ruins throughout their hometown, Paris. Eventually their passion for ruins led them to Detroit, Michigan, where they would embark on a five-year project that documented the decline of the city's urban landscape.
__The Ruins of Detroit (2005-10) is a series of work by the artistic duo that captures the effects of deindustrialisation in Detroit. For this series of work, the artist used a large-format camera to shoot their surroundings.
At the end of the 19th century, Detroit rapidly began to give rise to its own industrial revolution. With the growth in car manufacturing in the 1950s, Detroit became the epitome of the American Dream and saw its population increase to almost two million people. The landscape and architecture of Detroit changed to reflect the industrialisation taking place. By the 1960s, social tensions and segregation increased as the white middle-class began to leave the inner city in favour of suburban towns. With a steep decline in Detroit's population, whole neighbourhoods began to disappear. Grand buildings like theatres, shopping centres and train stations were abandoned, left to rot and decay.
Marchand and Meffre's photographic series documents the decaying architecture of Detroit. Their photographs demonstrate how the city's ruins have become a permanent fixture of the landscape. Imagery of empty streets and sidewalks, abandoned interiors and shattered exteriors illustrate a bleak environment of crumbling grandeur. By documenting the decline of Detroit's monuments, Marchand and Meffre present a visual account of the flaws of our modern economy and society.
In this series of work, Marchand and Meffre use a large-format 4X5 camera using long exposure to photograph old American movie theatres.
Throughout the beginning of the 20th century the entertainment industry boomed in America. Lavish auditoriums were designed and built by architects, commissioned by major movie studios and entertainment firms. In the 1960s, television grew in popularity and eventually made movie theatres obsolete. Many of the buildings were demolished, but those that remained have been transformed into supermarkets, dance halls, retail spaces, churches and sports halls. There are also a number of movie theatres waiting for restoration or that remain empty and abandoned.
Marchand and Meffre began photographing both reused and abandoned movie theatres in 2005. The photographers' typologies document the golden age of American cinema, capturing elaborate architectural designs being repurposed for everyday contemporary life. The imagery of decadent interiors reflects on the nostalgia felt for the American values and ideals that accompanied classic Hollywood cinema throughout the early 1900s.
Marchand and Meffre's work is included in the collections of several galleries and institutions. Selected collections include the Detroit Institute of Arts, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, the Ford Foundation and the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès.
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre have exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions. Selected solo exhibitions include A Fragment of Budapest, Galerie Fontana, Amsterdam (2019); Budapest Courtyards, Polka Galerie, Paris (2018); Industry, Tristan Hoare Gallery, London (2017); Theaters, Le Parvis, Pau (2016); Theaters, Cultuurcentrum Caermersklooster, Ghent (2015-16); Industry, Galerie Fontana, Amsterdam (2015); Industry, Polka Galerie, Paris, (2014-15); Gunkanjima, Polka Galerie, Paris (2013); The Ruins of Detroit, Galerie Fontana, Amsterdam (2012); Contemporary Ruins, Point of View Gallery, New York (2008).
Select group exhibitions include Paysages en vue(s), le MUDO – Musée de l'Oise, Beauvais (2019); Le Temps de l'île, Mucem, Marseille (2019); In Ruins, Witley Court, Great Witley, Worcestershire (2019); Theaters, Nuit de la Photo, La Chaux-de-Fonds (2019); L'ombre de l'angle, CAUE 92, Nanterre (2017); Teamwork Makes the Dream Work, Polka Galerie, Paris (2016); La forza delle rovine, Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome (2015-16); Reimagining the Industrial Revolution, Meadow Arts & Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, Coalbrookdale (2015); Hip hop: du Bronx aux rues Arabes, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris (2015).
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre's website can be found here and their Instagram can be found here.
Phoebe Bradford | Ocula | 2022
