Richland Mall, 2009; archival pigment print. Courtesy of Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco. Brian Ulrich began photographing abandoned shopping malls, stores, and big box retailers in the wake of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, an uncertain time when the government called on Americans to resume their normal patterns of consumption. Outside of the obvious timeliness of Ulrich's show and current platitudes about American consumerism, "Dark Stores" is a collection of beautifully uncanny images that ruminate upon the structure and occasional failure of retail architecture. In his photographs, interiors of abandoned stores sit void of merchandise, with exteriors equally... Read More