Exhibition dates: 15th November – 30th December 2016
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
Reno Sparks, Looking South (1)
1977
Silver gelatin print
I love this man’s work. Elegant, formalist, classical photographs of man altered landscapes and their environs.
New Topographics.
From the lineage of Carleton E. Watkins, Timothy O’Sullivan and Eadweard Muybridge in the 19th century through until today, these “modern and postmodern photographic landscapes mark a progressively disquieting understanding of humanity’s relationship to the natural universe.” First there was exploration and documentation, now there is the glare of blown-out skies, broken fluorescent tubes and soulless, tract homes.
The brooding mountain behind Model Home; the evanescent light of Night Construction falling into imperishable darkness; and the twinkling, star studded wall of New Construction, Shadow Mountain. Light-filled space traced onto film producing timeless, twisted dioramas. Landscape as conceptual performance.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Mike and Joseph Bellows Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“In Nevada, Lewis Baltz alternates unbuilt views with home construction, trailer parks, and roads in a documentation of a rapidly changing landscape in the desert valleys surrounding Reno, an area he once described as “landscape-as-real-estate.” Baltz, like Joe Deal and Harold Jones, whose works are on view in this gallery, developed projects as portfolios, believing that a single photograph cannot capture a complete portrait of a place. In Baltz’s series, a multifaceted, occasionally contradictory image of Nevada emerges through the accumulation of photographs.”
Text from the exhibition America in View: Landscape Photography 1865 to Now
“Once continental expansion had reached its limits, however, and no existential threats to white settlement remained, American landscape images began to reflect a new criticality – at turns romantic and realistic – that persists to this day. Indeed, for the last century, landscape photography has consistently mirrored Americans’ anxieties about nature, or rather its imminent loss, whether due to industrialization, pollution, population growth, real estate profiteering, or bioengineering. Alternately portraying nature as a balm for the alienated modern soul or a dystopian fait accompli, modern and postmodern photographic landscapes mark a progressively disquieting understanding of humanity’s relationship to the natural universe.”
Deborah Bright. Photographing Nature, Seeing Ourselves 2012 in America in View: Landscape Photography 1865 to Now catalogue, p.32
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
Hidden Valley, Looking South (2)
1977
Silver gelatin print
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
Hidden Valley, Looking Southeast (3)
1977
Silver gelatin print
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
Fluorescent Tube (4)
1977
Silver gelatin print
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
US 50, East of Carson City (5)
1977
Silver gelatin print
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
New Construction, Shadow Mountain (6)
1977
Silver gelatin print
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
Night Construction (7)
1977
Silver gelatin print
Joseph Bellows Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition, NEVADA by the late American photographer, Lewis Baltz (1945-2014). NEVADA will present the entire portfolio of 15 black and white photographs created by Baltz in 1977. The exhibition will open on November 15th and continue through December 30th, 2016.
Nevada is a central work of Baltz’s continued interest in the American West and its changing landscape. The photographs describe the development of the desert region of Nevada, near Reno: construction sites and their artefacts, vistas of newly built tract communities, and the desert environments that surround their imprint are traced with the high-key light of the western sun or glow of artificial light illuminating the darkness of night.
Biography
Lewis Baltz was born in Newport Beach, California in 1945. He received his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1969 and his MFA from Claremont Graduate School in 1971. That same year he was included in The Crowed Vacancy: Three Los Angeles Photographers, an exhibition that also included Anthony Hernandez and Terry Wild.
Baltz’s photographs of the transforming American landscape defined a central role in 1970’s landscape photography and influenced forthcoming generations of photographic practice. He, along with other notable photographers including Frank Gohkle, Robert Adams, Stephen Shore and John Schott came to prominence through their inclusion in the groundbreaking and influential exhibition, New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape, an exhibition organised at the George Eastman House in 1975.
Baltz’s serial work often took the form of published portfolios relating to a particular landscape theme or geographic location. Portfolios include: The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California (1974), Nevada (1978), Park City (1980), San Quentin Point (1985) and Candlestick Point (1989). Baltz received two National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1973 and 1977 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1977. His photographs have been the subject of over 50 one-person exhibitions and seventeen monographs.
Press release from the Joseph Bellows Gallery
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
Model Home, Shadow Mountain (8)
1977
Silver gelatin print
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
B Street, Sparks (9)
1977
Silver gelatin print
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
Lemmon Valley, Looking North (11)
1977
Silver gelatin print
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
Lemmon Valley, Looking Northeast (12)
1977
Silver gelatin print
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
Lemmon Valley, Looking Northwest, Toward Stead (13)
1977
Silver gelatin print
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
Nevada 33, Looking West (14)
1977
Silver gelatin print
Lewis Baltz (American, 1945-2014)
Mustang Bridge Exit, Interstate 80 (15)
1977
Silver gelatin print
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