University at Buffalo (UB)
Patricia Layman Bazelon: The Color of Steel
Patricia Layman Bazelon, Basic Oxygen Furnace, Vessel on Charging Platform, Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s Lackawanna Plant, 1989. Chromogenic print. University at Buffalo Art Galleries: Gift of Lauren Tent, 2015. Image courtesy of the estate of Patricia Layman Bazelon.
Patricia Layman Bazelon: The Color of Steel showcases the architectural photographs by the English-born artist Patricia Layman Bazelon (1933-1995) during her tenure in Buffalo. In the 1980s, Reyner Banham commissioned Bazelon to photograph the region’s grain elevators for his landmark publication Concrete Atlantis, which elevated her career as an architectural photographer. Shortly thereafter, beginning in 1987, Bazelon began a four-year long project documenting the recently abandoned Bethlehem Steel plant in Lackawanna, NY during the facility’s reclamation phase. Bazelon’s imagery provides us with a new way of viewing present day architectural relics and focus on the beauty she found in abandonment, decay, and destruction.
This exhibition is curated by Nicholas Ostness, Registrar, UB Art Galleries. Special thanks to the estate of Patricia Layman Bazelon.