The Beauty of Desolation and Destruction in the Work of the LEWIS BALTZ photographer

09/02/2017. Exhibition at Fundación MAPFRE [MAD] Spain 09.02 > 04.06.2017
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA

From, today, 9 February you will be able to enjoy the work of the American photographer Lewis Baltz. This is the first exhibition of his work in Spain, as well as being the first international retrospective to take place since his death in 2014. Baltz created a new photographic vision of the United States in the second half of the 20th century. Instead of America's natural unspoilt beauty, he revealed the suburbs proliferating on the edges of the cities and depicted the landscape as occupied territory.

Lewis Baltz. Monterey, from The Prototype Works, 1967. Gelatin silver print 20 x 25,2 cm. Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz. Monterey, from The Prototype Works, 1967. Gelatin silver print 20 x 25,2 cm. Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz Tract House no. 4, from The Tract Houses, 1971. Gelatin silver print 14,2 x 22,4 cm Private collection, Paris. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz. South East Corner, Semicoa, 333 Mc Cormick, Costa Mesa, from The new Industrial Parks near Irvine, California, 1974. Gelatin silver print 20,3 x 25,4 cm. George Eastman Museum, gift of the photographer. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz. Maryland no. 25, from Maryland, 1976 Gelatin silver print 20,3 x 25,4 cm Fondation A Stichting, Brussels. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz. Night Construction, Reno, from Nevada, 1977 Gelatin silver print 20,3 x 25,2 cm Fondation A Stichting, Brussels. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz. Looking Northeast from Masonic Hill. In foreground, from left: Prospector Village; Prospector Park, Subdivision Phases I and III. In middle distance, across State Highway 248, Park Meadows, Subdivision 5, from Park City, 1978-1980 Gelatin silver print 20,1 x 25,4 cm Deichtorhallen Hamburg / Falckenberg Collection. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz. Park City, interior, 12, from Park City, 1978-1980 Gelatin silver print 20,1 x 25,4 cm Deichtorhallen Hamburg / Falckenberg Collection. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz. Near Reno no. 11, from Near Reno, 1986-1987 Gelatin silver print 20 x 25,5 cm Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz. Continuous Fire Polar Circle no. 1, from Continuous Fire Polar Circle, 1986 Gelatin silver print 20,3 x 25,4 cm Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz. San Quentin Point no. 8, from San Quentin Point, 1983 Gelatin silver print 20,2 x 25,3 cm cada una Fondation A Stichting, Brussels. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz. Air France, Sophia Antipolis (FR), from Sites of Technology, 1989-1991 C-Print 144 x 108 cm Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz. Piazza Pugliese, from Generic Night Cities, 1992 Cibachrome print mounted on aluminium 250 x 125 cm. Collection Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz. Corso dei Lavoro, from Generic Night Cities, 1992 Cibachrome print 101,6 x 68,5 cm Courtesy of Private Collector and Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica, California. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Lewis Baltz. Piazza Sigmund Freud, 1989 3 Cibachrome prints Each 124 x 188 cm Commerzbank AG, Frankfurt am Main. Photography © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Image courtesy of Fundación Mapfre

Fundación MAPFRE has presented on Tuesday the exhibition of the American Lewis Baltz (Newport Beach, California, 1945 - Paris, 2014), one of the most important photographers of the second half of the 20th century.

Baltz used photography as a means of expression and as the main instrument for getting his ideas across. That said, his opinions and concerns were very much in line with the art and philosophy of the sixties and seventies, especially with regard to minimalism and Land Art.

Baltz's singular images are surprisingly stark and devoid of emotion, which gives them the appearance of being technical, pared down and almost intangible. The influence of cinema on his work explains why the majority of it is organized into series, although without necessarily having a narrative structure or content.

Photography was the mechanism Baltz used as a means of expression, as a tool for research and knowledge, very much in line with the philosophical and artistic thinking of the sixties and seventies. Because of this, formally, Baltz operated as a professional of direct photography but, in terms of content, he was an artist who thought conceptually and his education was shaped by the artistic concepts prevalent at the time.

Using around 400 exhibits, the show presents and discusses the entire range of Lewis Baltz's work, from his first photographic series in black and white taken in the 60s and 70s such as The Prototypes Works, The Tract Houses and The New Industrial Parks near Irvine, California, up to the work in color and the exploration of new artistic languages of his later years like Ronde de Nuit, The Deaths in Newport and Venezia Marghera.

Lewis Baltz (Newport Beach, California, 1945 - Paris, 2014) is one of the most important photographers of the second half of the 20th century. Traditionally, his work has been associated with the generation of photographers that came together for the New Topographics exhibition, which questioned the concept of the landscape as beautiful, existential and almost sacred, and showed it as it really was, as a result of the almost always unfortunate intervention of mankind.

Baltz viewed the landscape as an urbanized, structured and populated space, and portrayed these constructions as being muted and virtually faceless. For him, natural scenery had become landscape as real estate, where the countryside and the city were worth exactly the same in monetary terms and, just like a surveyor, he measured it step by step and recorded it in his pictures.