At first, they look like ordinary buildings, photographed in an ordinary manner. Each is shot formally from across the street, framed by thick black utility cables and poles, barbed wire fences, graffiti and flyposters carving horizontal and vertical planes, with glimpses of cerulean California sky and Arcadian palms beyond. It’s the city, but there are no people in sight, and the streets are clean of debris and dirt, except for a few oil stains left behind in a parking lot. The pictures are strangely silent.
None of these buildings have windows – if they do, they are boarded up, shuttered, blacked out. In only one photograph, the door is left mysteriously open – inside, I can just make out a security door, latticed iron bars, and beyond it a neon arrow sign directing the way in. These are photographs to tease your deepest voyeuristic desires. Only the titles direct you to what’s going on inside these locations – “12 stalls, 1 leather bunk bed, outdoor garden, 1 water fountain, 1 barber’s chair, glory-hole platform, Chinese decor” reads one.
