The Last Cruze is one of ‘Our Favorite Photobooks of 2021’
Clément Chéroux
Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator of Photography
Michelle Elligott
Chief of Archives, Library, and Research Collections
MoMA selects LaToya Ruby Frazier, The Last Cruze (The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, 2020) as one of ‘Our Favorite Photobooks of 2021’
[MoMA is] launching a new yearly celebration of the photobook. The list comprises 10 favorite photobooks of 2021, dating between July 2020 and August 2021. These books are now part of [the MoMA] Library collection, and are also available for anyone to purchase in the [MoMA] Design Store. Here, we’ve invited our colleagues across the Photography and Archives, Library, and Research Collections departments to contribute short descriptions of these standout titles.
LaToya Ruby Frazier, The Last Cruze
In The Last Cruze (The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, 2020), LaToya Ruby Frazier documents the ripple effects caused by General Motors’ decision in November 2018 to “unallocate” its plant in Lordstown, Ohio. After more than 50 years in operation, in March 2019 GM called off production of the Chevrolet Cruze, leaving some 2,000 factory workers and their families uprooted. The events caused a historic loss of heritage in Lordstown, bringing intensified attention to the small Rust Belt town, which emerged as a subject of political dispute. The book pairs Frazier’s black-and-white portraits of working-class Americans with their unflinching testimonies, and brings together a selection of color images taken by Kasey King, an autoworker and photographer for the labor union UAW Local 1112, inside the plant (where Frazier was not allowed to photograph). A careful, research-driven project, The Last Cruze includes a timeline of union history in America and a series of incisive essays by writer Coco Fusco, art historian Benjamin J. Young, curators Karsten Lund and Solveig Øvstebø, and sociologist Werner Lange, alongside interviews with Marxist geographer David Harvey, US Senator Sherrod Brown, and the playwright Lynn Nottage. Frazier’s project amplifies a deep lineage of socially engaged photobooks by Gordon Parks, and is linked to the conceptual practices of Martha Rosler and Allan Sekula.
–Roxana Marcoci, Senior Curator, Department of Photography
Courtesy of: MoMA.org
