When Stephen Szoradi was in college at Bennington he heard that a drawing class was taking a field trip to a nearby quarry. Attracted by the prospect of seeing a large explosion, he tagged along, only to find himself fascinated by the whole scene. “I’d never seen raw materials before, growing up in D.C.” He returned with his camera and began photographing the quarry, but found he wanted more. “It seemed like a natural progression to go from photographing the plant itself to get the whole picture,” and soon he was photographing and interviewing workers. The exhibit that resulted placed photographs of retired workers above excerpts from their interviews.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Szoradi first came to Chicago in 1989, to assist two local sculptors as part of a work-study program. He already had an interest in the area’s steel industry, piqued by industry photographs of Lewis Hine and Charles Sheeler, and he was delighted by the presence of light industry–the lumberyards, the building-supply places, fabricating plants. So after graduating in 1990 he returned and enrolled in Columbia College’s MFA program in photography, hoping to focus on the steel industry. His initial requests to photograph inside steel mills were roundly rejected; persistence, and a friend’s father, got him into a finishing plant, and he was eventually able to gain access to some mills. Nucor, in Crawfordsville, Indiana, gave him the run of the place.
A selection of these photos is presented as part of Szoradi’s new exhibit, his MFA thesis show called “Blue Collar Cathedral,” now on view at Ab Imo Gallery. In one of the stranger but more effective combinations of media I’ve seen, he groups his stately prints with ordinary objects from the mills, wrenches and hard hats, mounted and displayed like objects of veneration. Also included are a number of sketchbooks from the project.
