Boneyards will feature two photographic series by James Cathcart; one documenting the rough, ghostly landscape of late-1980’s Williamsburg, Brooklyn; the other capturing rare views of the U.S. Military’s aircraft repository.
After moving to the south side of Williamsburg in 1988, Cathcart became interested in observing, documenting and working with the process of ‘car stripping’. In the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, Williamsburg was a convenient neighborhood for the dismantling of stolen cars and the resale of used car ... Read more
Boneyards will feature two photographic series by James Cathcart; one documenting the rough, ghostly landscape of late-1980’s Williamsburg, Brooklyn; the other capturing rare views of the U.S. Military’s aircraft repository.
After moving to the south side of Williamsburg in 1988, Cathcart became interested in observing, documenting and working with the process of ‘car stripping’. In the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, Williamsburg was a convenient neighborhood for the dismantling of stolen cars and the resale of used car parts. His observation of car stripping and disposal in Williamsburg continued through the mid nineties – when the neighborhood began changing rapidly.
Falling parallel to the dilapidated, industrial aesthetic are his photographs of AMARC (Aerospace Maintenance And Regeneration Center). Cathcart first discovered the massive, 2600-acres facility out of the window of a commercial airplane in 2006. Adjacent to the Davis-Monthan Air Force base in Tucson, Arizona, AMARC stores over 4200 aircraft in the Sonaran Desert. Serving as the official repository for all of America’s military aircraft after retirement, some of the craft are dismantled for parts, while others are sold as scrap metal. A remarkable aspect of this series is that non-military personnel are restricted from the site; the photographs were taken from either a moving bus, from behind a perimeter fence, or from a small private plane at the limits of restricted air space, all for a glimpse at what is locally known as The Boneyard.
