In "Lonely Structures," Barry Shapiro presents abandonment as grandeur.  A flipped over car alone in a field appears alongside of ancient ruins in an empty, pastoral landscape.  Shapiro's series suggest an interconnectedness between these two objects, and in both images there is a sense of spiritual destruction.  The end of empire found in both the discarded automobile and the atrophied bones of the ancient structure.  In calling attention to what humans leave behind, Shapiro creates presence in absence while posing pressing questions about the decomposition of what once had value. The abandonment of these objects makes me think about the people who left them behind, makes me think about the ways in which the world is always dying.

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Daniel Borzutzky

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