L.A. DRIVE-BY (1996-2000)

Los Angeles is constantly recreating itself. The city has only a couple of buildings that are more than a century old. The rest of the buildings – houses, streets, shopping centers, parking places – date from the last 100 years. L.A. therefore gives the impression of having just been created. Like a contemporary archaeologist the German photographer Michael Lange went in search of L.A.’s visible history. He entered the run-down neighborhoods from the 1940s and 1950s, which are avoided by most residents of the city because of their relative age. This is the territory of the poor black population and the Latinos, where violence and drive-by shootings are the order of the day. Lange photographed the surroundings from the safety of his automobile, as a threatening, autonomous world from which the rich, white part of L.A. isolates itself.