“My work in the landscape is ultimately about human culture, not about nature. I always think of landscape as historical, or historicized; as not existing outside of history.”
“In my opinion, the devastating confusion that capitalism wreaks upon the coherence of memory and history renders almost all imagery, and in particular, photography, as bearer of the uncanny.”
“I never had any profound loyalty to the idea of photography as a medium but simply as the most efficient way of making or recording an image.”
39, WEST WALL, SMICOA, 333 MCCORMICK, COSTA MESA © LEWIS BALTZ, IP 39, FROM THE SERIES “NEW INDUSTRIAL PARKS, NEAR IRVINE, CALIFORNIA”, 1974; STEIDL Interview (excerpt) with Lewis Baltz Conducted by Matt Witkovsky At Baltz’s home in Paris, France. 2009 November 15-17 MR. BALTZ: You aspire to making something – at least at the time, […]
“If you wanted to work in the vein of Walker Evans, you could do very well at Yale. But if you didn’t want to do that, you were just – you’re kind of left alone.” – Lewis Baltz Oral history interview with Lewis Baltz, 2009 Nov. 15-17 An interview of Lewis Baltz conducted 2009 […]
From Park City, Lewis Baltz Landscape and the West – Irony and Critique in New Topographic Photography By Kelly Dennis, Paper Presented at the Forum UNESCO University and Heritage 10th International Seminar “Cultural Landscapes in the 21st Century” Newcastle-upon-Tyne, April 11-16, 2005 Whereas Ansel Adams photographed the sinuous, abstract patterns left by timeless winds on […]
Albuquerque, New Mexico and NE Artspace Press and Castelli Graphics, 1980 (All images @ Lewis Baltz) ASX CHANNEL: LEWIS BALTZ
“One of the things that helps me with doing a book is getting a title at some point that lets me understand its content. I mean basically, that [points to the title of the book] is what’s in here. This [the first chapter] is ‘There,’ this [the second chapter] is the transition, ‘And,’ and this […]
“For me the word ‘photographer’ talks about the means of delivering certain kinds of information, feelings and such. If you’re consistently focused on the means of delivery, it means you’re not getting the message across very clearly.” – John Gossage Interview by Monte Packham Lewis Baltz and John Gossage depict man’s contentious impact on […]
By Jean-Pierre Greff and Elisabeth Milon The photographer Lewis Baltz, originally from California, has spent the past thirty years, mainly in urban and suburban surroundings, bringing out what would otherwise remain below the surface, marginalised, rejected or that indeed that would exist solely as a transition between two states, between two moments or places. In […]
“Construction Detail, East Wall, Xerox, 1821 Dyer Road, Santa Ana,” 1974 from “The new Industrial Parks near Irvine, California.” Gelatin silver print. (Lewis Baltz/Courtesy Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne) When Baltz’s series “The Tract Houses” was exhibited at the International Museum of Photography in 1972, photographs by Bernd and Hilla Becher purposely appeared in an […]
“Lewis Baltz: In the Desert” features 29 photographs from the internationally renowned photographer’s series “Nevada” and “Near Reno.” An icon of contemporary photography, Baltz took the black-and-white images of construction sites and abandoned areas in the northern Nevada desert region between 1977 and 1986. Many of the images in “Lewis Baltz: In the Desert” are […]