He has some favorites among the 60 photos in the BYU exhibit.

"'Roller Dismantle Flare' is one of my favorites because it begins to demonstrate the malleability of the camera and the film and the lens. You have artificial-light color, motion and a light flare. It also shows the degree of destruction in a strangely peaceful, calm setting."

"Dunker's photographs are both document and poetic form, recording the appearance while musing over the fate of the facility and its former occupants," said Museum of Art photography curator Diana Turnbow. "To those formerly employed at the steelworks, the photographs reveal familiar spaces made unfamiliar by stillness and vacancy. To others, the building interiors and machinery reveal an exotic world of heightened color and industrial forms.

"While Dunker's photographs document a specific site, they prompt thoughtful reflection upon the intricate global network of finance, commerce and government policy that brought Geneva Steel and other steel production facilities to this end," Turnbow said.

Geneva Steel was built during World War II and produced its first steel for West Coast shipyards in 1944. The plant remained in operation until 2001. Geneva Steel declared bankruptcy early in 2002, and by the end of the year, the company began to liquidate its assets and make plans to demolish the physical plant.

Dunker said he wishes something had been saved on the site, a building or a piece of equipment that could be made into a monument to the once robust industry giant that was the largest steel plant west of the Mississippi River in the 20th century.

"The reuse of existing structures is always awesome," he said.

If you go ...

What: "Dismantling Geneva Steel"
Where: BYU Museum of Art, Campus Drive, Provo
When: Friday-Nov. 1, Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Saturday noon-5 p.m.
Of special note: Artist lecture and exhibition preview on Thursday, 7-9 p.m.
Cost: Free
Phone: 422-8287
Web: moa.byu.edu

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Editor's note: Joseph A. Cannon, editor of the Deseret Morning News, is a former chairman of the board and CEO for Geneva Steel.

E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com