Todd Hido - Foreclosed Homes

1922

1968

1927

Todd Hido's evocative images foreclosed homes seem to relate poetically as the expired remains of his earlier series homes at night. If architecture is not buildings but how people use them, then there is an air of crime scene like uncertainty about these abstracted compositions. Time of day or night is ambiguous and they capture the disbelieving gaze of one looking at the uncanny appearance of one's emptied house..... was this our home?

The quality of light, filtered and from without underlines their quiet redundancy, extinguished. The rooms seem to act as imperfect cameras themselves absorbing unfocused light on to their faded walls, negatives, shuttered. If the rooms have character remaining to them it seems as helpless observers to a future beyond their control. Could these be the opposite of real estate views? Todd kindly sent some further information:

As an artist I have always felt that my task is not to create meaning, but to charge the air so that meaning can occur.

These images of homes at night are about the anonymity of those who reside in them. The pictures hint at some kind of story - only lurking in the vicinity of narrative.

Standing outside looking in—the lights come on and the inside seeps to the outside.

In the interior photographs—some of these foreclosed homes were cleaned up and some were filthy. The filthy ones I liked best for pictures, they told a better story. In the clean ones, I wondered what was erased.


For a very interesting interview with the artist where he reflects on the idea of 'home' and the process of presenting his work please see Ahorn Magazine.