The Baldwin River, Baldwin, Michigan, 2012
8x10 Gelatin Silver Contact Print

Artist Statement

A picture that lives on, has a life of its own, beyond that of its maker, is a difficult achievement. This picture with a life, it’s not a disposable group of pixels, it is instead, an awkward lurching thing that somehow retains eloquence: a meaningful reflection of where we are now, a near perfect frame without waste or false-hoods, a thing that, at least in part, defines us, just as culture is defined by what people make.

The master practitioners of photography have helped define us, since the first picture was made, they have asked, answered, and presented questions from our everyday, always asking of us the same thing: look. They have done this for unknown reasons, motivated by unknown forces, making unknown connections that somehow feel real to us. The real German people of the early 1900’s, unknown to us without the aid of August Sander. The pyramids existence was confirmed by observers like Francis Frith and the slums of New York during the industrial age, they can only be felt now, through the pictures of Jacob Riis.

Contemporary photographers have carried the torch, just as all artists do from one generation to the next, without reason or knowing; the force of the work, once started cannot stop. It’s rolling now, and what we have learned from the photographs of the last hundred and fifty years cannot be put into words. Only more pictures.

Marco Lorenzetti
February 2013

b.Detroit

Marco Lorenzetti received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Michigan School of Art and Design and his Masters of Fine Arts degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His photographs have been characterized as “forceful and compelling” by the late Robert Sobieszek, Curator of Photography at George Eastman House in New York and later, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. While living in Chicago, his work was shown at the Chicago Historical Society, the Field Museum, the Chicago Cultural Center, Art Institute of Chicago, the Terra Museum of American Art and Edwynn Houk Gallery. His work is widely collected and is part of the permanent collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Art Institute of Chicago, and The Alden B. Dow Museum of Art.