Next to Bernd and Hilla Becher, Stephen Shore and Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz is one of the most prominent representatives of the New Topographics movement, which was seminal to the development of conceptual photography.
Baltz's photo series document the side effects of industrial civilization on the landscape, focusing on places that lie outside the bounds of canonical reception: urban wastelands, abandoned industrial sites, warehouses. His photographs uncover the correspondences between spatial forms that occur in the everyday world and advanced forms found in art. Baltz's strategies imply a reflexive knowledge of the history of photography in that they deploy the photographer as a teacher of seeing who makes things visible through reductive gestures. He already turned in the mid-1960s towards a reduced, minimalist-style aesthetic, orienting himself on artists in the fields of painting, sculpture and Land Art.
The Prototype Works and the 25-piece The Tract Houses are among his earliest projects, which broke with mainstream photographic traditions to reveal pronounced modernist references. Baltz manages in his work to extend the notion of the documentary; he "emphasizes the paradoxical position of photography within the art history of its time" (Sheryl Conkelton).
Baltz's minimalist and reduced image compositions explore the photographic style as a process, and refer not only to the art of photographers like Lee Friedlander or Robert Frank but also to painters and sculptors of his day such as Donald Judd, Frank Stella, Jasper Johns or Sol LeWitt. Convergences are to be found in his formal and aesthetic compositional patterns as well as in the content he fixes on, which Baltz subjects to a highly critical analysis, without however losing sight of essentials. The focus is on universal aspects instead of particularities, as expressed above all in his "Prototype Works".
Born in Newport, California, in 1945, Lewis Baltz studied photography at the Art Institute in San Francisco from 1966–69 and went on to hold various teaching positions and professorships in the 1970s. He still teaches today, at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura in Venice, where he lives and works, while also maintaining a home in Paris. At the young age of 26 he had his first solo exhibition of photographs, at Leo Castelli in New York. In 1975 Lewis Baltz then took part in the "New Topographics" exhibition at George Eastman House. Since then, his works have been featured in numerous international solo and group exhibitions, and they are included in various important collections worldwide. In 2010 Baltz's works will be on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, at the LACMA, Los Angeles. A solo exhibition follows at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC in 2011.
All German publications on Lewis Baltz were published by Steidl Verlag.
His photographic practice is a leading influence within the original section of contemporary landscape photography that traces the transitions from nature to regions altered by human life.
At the beginning of the 1990s his work took a surprising turn away from landscape photography and toward the phenomena of technology and nomadism, which he thinks of as connected to each other and to the vanishing of the world.
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Baltz, Lewis ◊
Houston B, 1972
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Houston A, 1972
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Baltz, Lewis ◊
Paolo Alto, 1973
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Baltz, Lewis ◊
Fairfax, 1973
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Baltz, Lewis ◊
Tract House no. 1,
1971
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Baltz, Lewis ◊
Tract House no. 21,
1971
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Baltz, Lewis ◊
Corso dei Lavoro,
1992
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Baltz, Lewis ◊
Corso dei Lavoro,
1992
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Baltz Lewis - Cooling
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Baltz Lewis - Office
Unoccupied, 1989 -
1992
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Baltz Lewis - CNET
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1992
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Baltz Lewis - Air
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Current and past exhibition-dates and information
Sep 3rd, 2005
LEWIS BALTZ
May 26th, 2003
TV/ Cinema/ Video
Dec 9th, 2003
LEWIS BALTZ: SITES OF TECHNOLOGY / MAX REGENBERG: NEUE ARBEITEN
Sep 1st, 2007
LEWIS BALTZ 89/91
Sep 4th, 2010
LEWIS BALTZ DONALD JUDD
More dates:
Selected Solo Exhibitions:
2010-2011
Lewis Baltz: Prototypes/Ronde de Nuit, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, September 2010 - January 2011 and National Gallery of Art, Washington, April - July 2011
2010
Lewis Baltz / Donald Judd, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne
The Park City Portfolio, UCR / California Museum of Photography, Riverside, USA
2008
Lewis Baltz, Andrew Roth, New York
1989-91 Sites of Technology, Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica, CA
2007
89/91 Sites of Technology, Galleria Civica di Modena, Italy
Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne
2006
Kunstverein Bremerhaven, Germany
2005
Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne
2002
Marburger Kunstverein
Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
University Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
2001
"Was wäre wenn", Kunstverein Rüsselsheim, Germany
Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, CA
1998
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
1995
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark
1993
"Rule Without Exception", Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland
1992
"Ronde de Nuit", Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
1990
"Rule Without Exception", New York Institute of Contemporary Art
1985
Victoria und Albert Museum, London
1980
Werkstatt für Photographie, Berlin
1974
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Rochester
1971
Castelli Graphics, New York
Selected Group Exhibitions:
2010
Ruptures and Continuities: Photography Made after 1960 from the MFAH Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA
The View from Here, SFMOMA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA
New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, Los Angeles County Museum of Art / LACMA, Los Angeles, USA
dentité(s)/ Territorialité(s), TRAFIC - FRac Haute-Normandie, Sotteville-lès-Rouen, France
Le paradis, ou presque : Los Angeles [1865-2008], Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon-sur-Saone, France
2009
"Into the Sunset, Photography's Image of the American West", Museum of Modern Art, New York
Life is stranger than fiction, FO.KU.S Foto Kunst Stadforum, Innsbruck, Austria
THIS SIDE OF PARADISE : LOS ANGELES (1865-2008), Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
Seventies, le choc de la photographie américaine, BNF - Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris
Into the Sunset, Photography's Image of the American West, Museum of Modern Art, New York
2008
"Universal Archive. The Condition of the Document and Modern Photographic Utopia", MACBA, Barcelona, Museum Colecçao Berardo
"Context: Double Down: Two Visions of Vegas (with Olivo Barbieri and Stephen Dean)", San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
"This Side of Paradise: Body and Landscape in L.A. Photographs", The Huntington Library, San
Marino, CA
"Jennifer Bornstein Selects From the Grunwald Collection", Hamme Museum, University of California, Los Angeles
"20th Century Photography", Chiba City Museum of Art, Chiba City, Japan
"Here Is Every: Four Decades of Contemporary Art", MOMA, New York
"D'Impossibles Trendezvous-Biennale de St. Denis", Paris
"American Photography les Annees 70", Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris
2007
"Ingenuity", Calouste Golbenkian Center, Lisbon
"Life is Stranger Than Fiction", Albertina Museum, Vienna
"Views of Water", Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan
"Des fantomes et des anges", Musée d'Art Moderne, Villeneuve-d'Ascq
"Art for Yale: Collecting for the 21st Century", Yale University Art Museum, New Haven, CT
2006
"TRANS EMILIA. Collection Linea di Confine", Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland and SK-Stiftung, Cologne
Tempo Moderno, Palazzo Ducale, Genova, Italy
2005
STEIDL China Launch and Photography Exhibition , Timezone 8 Editions , Beijing, RC
The Altered Landscape: The Carol Franc Buck Collection , National Academy of Sciences, Washington, USA
2003
"Cruel and Tender", Tate Modern, London und Museum Ludwig, Köln
1995
"Geschichten von Verlangen und Macht", Museum für Fotografie Braunschweig
1987
"Vom Landschaftsbild zur Spurensicherung", Museum Ludwig Köln
1978
"Mirrors and Windows: American Photographie since 1960", Museum of Modern Art, New York
1977
"Biennal Exhibition", Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
1975
"New Topographics. Photographers of a Man-Altered Landscape", Georg-Eastman House, Rochster
Selected Public Collections:
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada
Art Institute of Chicago
Baltimore Museum of Art
Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris
Cincinatti Art Museum
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
Gorge Eastman House, Rochester, New York
Henie-Onstad Foundation, Oslo, Norway
International Center of Photography, New York
Kawasaki City Museum, Kawasaki, Japan
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo
Musei Civici, Reggio Emilia, Italy
Museum of Modern Art, New York
national Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan
Palazzo Fortuny, Venice, Italy
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Biography●Exhibition●Bibliography●Art objects |
Pressreleases
Sep 3rd, 2005
LEWIS BALTZ - New Topographics
Apr 29th, 2006
Lewis Baltz: Tempo Moderno
Oct 27th, 2006
The Kunstverein Bremerhaven presents Lewis Baltz
More publications
Selected Publications:
2010
Works (including 10 books), Steidl Publishers, 2010
2007
89/91 Sites of Technology, Steidl Publishers, 2007
2005
Lewis Baltz:
The Tract Houses
The Prototype Works
The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California
Steidl Publishers, 3 volumes in slipcase
With an essay by Sheryl Conkelton and an introduction by Adam D. Weinberg
1998
"The Politics of Bacteria, Docile Bodies, Ronde de Nuit", Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
1995
"Die Toten von Newport Beach", Museum für Fotografie Braunschweig
1993
"Classiques du XXI siecle", ed. by Bernhard Lamarche-Vadel, Paris
1993
"Rule Without Exception", Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zürich/Berlin/New York
1992
"Lewis Baltz. Five Projects 1983-1988", Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
"Ronde de Nuit", Centre George Pompidou, Paris
1989
"Candlestick Point", Tokyo
1986
"San Quentin Point",Zwölftes Haus, Berlin und Editions la Differèrence, Paris
1981
"Park City", Castelli Graphics und Artspace, New York
1978
"Nevada", Castelli Graphics, New York
1976
"Maryland", Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
1975
"New Industrial Parks Near Irvine", California, Castelli Graphics, New York
Biography●Exhibition●Bibliography●Art objects |
