In The Last Cruze, artist LaToya Ruby Frazier chronicles the lives of workers at the General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio. Due to a confluence of circumstances, including the global outsourcing of labor, rapid automation, and the growing demand for electric cars, GM’s Lordstown facility stopped production in 2019 after more than fifty years of operation. This shutdown presented Lordstown facility workers with limited choices: relocate, sometimes leaving behind family and support networks, or find work elsewhere. Across the country, the trickle-down effect of economic decline and the corporate response to this decline disproportionately affects large groups of workers who have very little decision-making power within big corporations. And yet, their labor remains vital to the development and success of these businesses.

Through sixty-seven photographs, video, and an architectural installation that echoes the Lordstown assembly line, The Last Cruze extends Frazier’s long-standing commitment to visualizing how working-class people—in places such as Flint, Michigan; her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania; and the Borinage mining region in Belgium—are impacted by industrial exploits, environmental injustice, and systemic racism.

The Last Cruze was commissioned by the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, where it was curated by Karsten Lund and Solveig Øvstebø. The exhibition at CAAM is organized by Taylor Renee Aldridge, Visual Arts Curator and Program Manager. The exhibition and related programs are presented in partnership with USC School of Architecture and USC Roski School of Art and Design.