CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 7/23/2013

Lori Nix: The City

Photographer Lori Nix constructs her post-apocalyptic models from ephemeral materials like foam core, balsa wood and colored paper, along with the occasional store-bought prop. "Bar" (2009), is reproduced from The City, her fascinating new monograph from Decode Books, in which essayist Barbara Pollack writes, "While this and other of Nix's pictures are obviously a commentary on global warming and a freakish nature set loose by human error, her technique elevates her work beyond didactic environmental causes. It makes me a bit sad that she goes to all this work, with all the effort that goes into building each diorama, only to destroy them after the photograph is taken. Just as she builds from scratch worlds that look as if they are being destroyed or are already destroyed, she builds in order to destroy. All that is left is the photograph."