Detroit Doc by Russ Marshall (signed)
Russ Marshall’s stark imagery uses shades of black, the city at night, and the urban worker as theme and background. Detroit Doc is a self published edition, created without compromise and captures the rough noirish edge of Detroit from the late 50s until now. There is minimal text in Detroit Doc. Each image is provided with location, dates or description listed on a clear encapsulated caption card tucked into the book — preserving a stark uncluttered mystery and spiritual thrust for the book’s content.
The handheld 6″x9″ digest size is a showcase for the tightly organized full bleed spreads throughout. Marshall’s bleak and desperate energy is crammed into every grainy inch of the book, exuding the terror of a crime scene. With its abundance of material Detroit Doc is a slice of the city seldom seen or documented with such acuity and compassion. Marshall’s photography of Detroit is raw, unique, and endowed with greatness.
The flatt matt printing adds another level of grit and sixties design vibe — with shots mixing sweaty jazz musicians, factory workers, bikers, strippers, hustlers, dive clubs, midnight diners and oozing street scenes; Detroit Doc has a Weegee aura set within capitalist consumption and struggle. Marshall’s passion for the city elevates humanity and those buried under the daily urban apocalypse. Detroit Doc is a hand-sized beacon for fans of Brassai, Invisible Cities, and noir movies: a visual manifesto of our unkempt times.
“Born in 1940, Marshall grew up in Detroit and began shooting around the city capturing its local haunts, passersby and its legendary Michigan Central Station (MCS) in the 1950s throughout the 1960s. In the decades that followed, Marshall worked freelance for local labor magazines and created some of his most compelling work – labor portraits and candid imagery shot alongside the assembly line workers in factories, shops and plants throughout Detroit as well as in Dearborn’s Ford Rouge plant, GM plants in Flint, Michigan, and throughout other areas of the Midwest.” –bio from VisitD.com
Five decades of the photography of Russ Marshall is now on view at the Detroit Institute of Arts, through June 27, 2021.
First edition, signed copy 189 pps, 119 black and white photos with index card.
$ 125.00
