Description
Spanning three decades, The Jay More Collection chronicles the changing face of Los Angeles as it underwent the most extensive
period of destruction and reconstruction in its history: the ‘80s, ‘90s, and early 2000s. His portraits of residences, shops,
restaurants, even gas stations, taken merely days before their demolition, reveal the result that budget cuts, neglect and
apathy towards preservation had on the architecture that once defined
Los Angeles. More’s mission, to capture the historic and cultural significance of L.A.’s vanishing buildings provides an invaluable
record of what’s been lost, and a striking contrast between idiosyncrasy and conformity.
Background
Photographer Jay More’s instinct for composition captures the spirit and surroundings of his subjects as it pertained to the
overall theme of loss that is sensed throughout the collection. His earliest series of photographs chronicled the struggle
to save, then lose, downtown’s First Methodist Church in 1984, which became his inspiration for
photographing condemned buildings. Granddaughter, donor Danielle More, explained
her grandfather’s daily routine of scanning the newspapers, looking for mentions of a store or company about to go out of
business, a fire that gutted a building, a fight between preservationists and developers, anything that signaled another change
in the landscape of greater Los Angeles. He would then drive to the condemned structure, often with
Danielle in tow, and set up his camera, mindful to get multiple angles and distances,
adding to its context. The photographs were then carefully arranged in albums, often accompanied by the newspaper clippings
that announced their fate, along with receipts, business cards and other keepsakes he collected from the establishments he
patronized during their last days in operation. More made a practice of familiarizing himself with
the histories of his subjects, as evidenced by the various academic footnotes and archival
photographs included in his “Before and After” series, matching the original photos with his own using an exact taking perspective.
His dedication lasted nearly the rest of his life; More died in 2013, less than one year after shooting his last roll of film.