It has all the trademarks of a Trump tweet: a sleight of hand jab at Hillary Clinton. Blame-shifting to the Democrats. And the insinuation that nefarious forces are responsible, rather than his own actions.
Hillary Clinton should ask why the Democrat pols in Atlantic City made all the wrong moves – Convention Center, Airport – and destroyed City
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2016
Delivered in July before the election in 2016, it’s one of many tweets Trump has issued on the decline of Atlantic City over the years, 19 of which photographer Brian Rose tracked down to accompany his new book of photography, Atlantic City, which is being funded by preorders on Kickstarter and will be published Circa Press next year with an introduction by critic Paul Goldberger.
Rose’s tome is a visual meditation on both the demise of Atlantic City and the rise of the president. The Manhattan-based photographer has shot urban transformation for decades, documenting the evolution of cities like Berlin and neighborhoods like the Lower East Side. In the weeks after the 2016 presidential election, Rose drove the two hours down to Atlantic City with a similarly documentarian project in mind.
“As soon as I got there, I knew that I could photograph Atlantic City in the same way as I have other urban landscapes and just let the backstory of Donald Trump and his casino failures serve as the thread connecting the pictures together. I started with Trump’s abandoned casinos and then moved out into the surrounding streets. I have always maintained a relatively dispassionate view of what is front of me, but I have to say that this time, I was on a mission, and I saw Atlantic City as both victim and complicit in Trump’s predatory reign of the city. Complicit in the sense that casino gambling was supposed to be a panacea for all the city’s woes–it was Faustian bargain if ever there was one.”
The fading giants that feature in Rose’s photographs are testaments to that approach, and to the development paradigm of the era. “These buildings were designed to discourage interaction with the city,” Rose explains. “You drive in on a freeway that injects you straight into the parking garages attached to the casinos. You never have to step outside.”
He’s not the only notable photographer to turn his eye toward Trump since the election. Former White House photographer Pete Souza, for instance, regularly posts pointed imagery referring to the current administration. The architectural photography of Atlantic City is of a different flavor than Souza’s human-centered photos, but the message is just as clear: You’re looking at the urban impact of a distinctly Trumpian form of business management–and a profiteering ethos that the president has brought with him to the White House.
“Things are in flux in Washington, and who knows where we’ll be by the time the book hits the street,” Rose adds. “I don’t expect a photo book to bring down the president, but I do hope to ruffle some feathers. I think it’s important for artists to step up. It’s our freedom of expression that is at risk as the country slips toward authoritarianism.”
You can preorder Atlantic City on Kickstarter.