After Industry Alice F
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Lewis Baltz, South Wall, Resources Recovery Systems, 1882 McGaw, Irvine, from the series The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California, 1974. Collection of Gregory and Aline Gooding. © Successors of Lewis Baltz. Used by permission. Courtesy of Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica AFTER INDUSTRY ALICE F. AND HARRIS K. WESTON ART GALLERY September 23–November 27, 2016 AFTER INDUSTRY After Industry explores tensions structures photographed a generation between nature and industry in pho- earlier by Renger-Patzsch) laid the tographs by 14 artists, taken over the cornerstone of what became known past 100 years and assembled by New as the Düsseldorf School, comprising York collector and Ohio native Gregory well-known Becher students Thomas Gooding. A play on the phrase “after Struth, Thomas Ruff, and Andreas nature,” an archaic term for still life Gursky, and lesser-recognized contem- painting, After Industry offers an artis- poraries such as Ursula Schulz-Dorn- tic examination of the industrial age’s burg (b. 1938), each working in their impact on nature through the photo- own coolly objective style. graphic medium—itself a mechanical process and product of industry. The Bechers were featured with eight Ranging in date from the late 1920s to other photographers (all American) in the present day, with an emphasis on the seminal 1975 exhibition New Topo- the 1970s, and focusing primarily on graphics: Photographs of a Man-altered American and German photographers, Landscape, organized by the George the works in this exhibition present a Eastman House, in Rochester, New Mark Ruwedel, Dusk #21 (Antelope Valley #230), 2008. Collection of Gregory and York. Fellow photographers Robert Aline Gooding. © Mark Ruwedel. Used with permission. Courtesy of Gallery Luisotti, variety of historical perspectives on Santa Monica nature in relation to the man-made Adams (b. 1937), Lewis Baltz (1945- environment. 2014), Frank Gohlke (b. 1942), and Henry Wessel, Jr. (b. 1942), among others, shared with the Bechers an interest in industrial and vernacular forms— Frank Gohlke, Grain Elevators, Cyclone, Minneapolis, 1974. Collection of Gregory and expanded to include housing tracts, commercial strips, grain elevators—set Aline Gooding. © Frank Gohlke. Used with permission. Courtesy of Gallery Luisotti, The earliest photographs in the exhibi- Santa Monica tion are by German artist Albert Renger- in the landscape, clinically observed. Baltz and Wessel, in particular, also Patzsch (1897-1966) and the American Walker Evans (1903-1975), worked in series, methodically documenting, respectively, industrial parks and whose careers overlapped both contemporaneously and aesthetically. In commonplace houses in California. the late 1920s and early 1930s Renger-Patzsch photographed industrial landscapes, showing modern factories and their smokestacks existing Certain Wessel photographs, such as Walapai, Arizona, depicting a desert land- incongruently within the agrarian countryside. Renger-Patzsch sought scape with a sign for ice, ring with absurd humor. Lynne Cohen (1944-2014) to reveal structural commonalities between nature and industrial archi- pursued a similar target in a series of banal interiors with murals depicting tecture, asserting the equal aesthetic value and compatibility of each, outdoor natural beauty: forest scenes, palm trees, geese in flight. Schulz-Dorn- as visually outlined in his influential bookDie Welt Ist Schön (The World burg inverted the logic in a series of photographs of brutalist Armenian bus Is Beautiful), of 1928. In later works, from the 1950s, the photographer stops situated, with expectant travelers, in a remote dusty landscape. concentrated separately on studies of industrial factories and the for- In addition to detachment and irony, many works in the exhibition issue a ested landscape, while continuing to avoid value judgments between the distinctly romantic charge, particularly the images juxtaposing nature and two opposing subjects. Similarly, Walker Evans applied a “documentary decay: Renger-Patzsch’s tender “sapling,” a classic romantic symbol of sur- style,” emotionally detached and severely frontal, to factories, billboards, vival; Baltz’s primal Continuous Fire Polar Circle; Adams’ lonely eucalyptus and warehouses. Evans’ blank approach—neither glorifying nor condemn- overlooking Signal Hill; John Divola’s (b. 1949) expressionistic, apocalyptic ing—to the vernacular environment would have a great impact on more scenes of vandalism. More recently, the abandoned “exurban” houses and conceptually-based photographers of the 1960s and 1970s. re-forested railway grades of Mark Ruwedel (b. 1954) evidence not only decay Such detachment characterizes the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher but rejuvenation—nature as an irrepressible constant in relation to industry (1931-2007 and 1934-2015), whose typological studies of winding and prefabricated construction, and the industrial age as only a brief episode towers and other “anonymous sculptures” (in some cases the same within the longer course of human history. Robert Adams Bernd and Hilla Becher Bernd and Hilla Becher Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch On Signal Hill, Overlooking Long Pittsburgh, 1968 Winding Tower, 1972 “Eiserne Hand” in Essen, 1929 Strasse in Oberhausen, 1929 Das Bäumchen, 1929 Beach, California, 1983 Two gelatin silver prints Two gelatin silver prints Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Each 11¾ x 15¾ inches 9½ x 6¾ inches and 9½ x 7⅛ 8¾ x 6½ inches 9 x 6½ inches 8½ x 6½ inches 17¾ x 14¼ inches inches Bernd and Hilla Becher Bernd and Hilla Becher Bill Brandt Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch Winding Tower, 1968 Ensley, Alabama, United States, Halifax, 1937 Hohenburgstrasse am Bahndamm Landschaft bei Essen, im Wilder Zwetschenbaum bei Steele/ Two gelatin silver prints 1982 Gelatin silver print des Hauptbahnhofs in Essen, 1928 Hintergrund die Zeche Ruhr Gebeit, c. 1944 Each 9½ x 7 inches Gelatin silver print 9 x 7¾ inches Gelatin silver print “Rosenblumendelle”, 1928 Gelatin silver print 11 9 17 ⁄16 x 23 ⁄16 inches 8⅝ x 6½ inches Gelatin silver print 8⅞ x 6½ inches 6½ x 8⅞ inches Bill Brandt Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch A Snicket in Halifax, 1937 Landschaft bei Hamborn, 1929 Industrie-Schornstein, 1925 Fagus-Werk, Alfeld, 1928 Essen-Bergeborbeck, 1929 Sosa im Erzgebirge, 1937 Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print 9⅛ x 7¾ inches 8½ x 6½ inches 8½ x 6½ inches 8½ x 6½ inches 6⅝ x 9 inches 5⅝ x 8¼ inches 4 5 Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch Walker Evans Walker Evans Walker Evans Zeche Grimberg in Bergkamen, 1952 Zeche Germania, 1939 Bergahorn auf dem Grossen Louisiana Factory and Houses, 1935 Factory Street in Amsterdam, Easton, Pennsylvania, 1936 Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Ahornboden im Karwendel, 1947 Gelatin silver print New York, 1930 Gelatin silver print 8¾ x 6½ inches 8¾ x 6½ inches Gelatin silver print 6 x 9 inches Gelatin silver print 7½ x 9½ inches 8⅝ x 6½ inches 5½ x 7⅝ inches Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch Walker Evans, Walker Evans Walker Evans Fichtenwald im Winter, 1951 Zeche Germania, Dortmund Marten, Mine, Bonifacius, 1947 Display Sign, Birmingham, Alabama, Teague Hardware Co., 1936 Corrugated Tin Façade, 1936 Gelatin silver print 1954 Gelatin silver print 1936 Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print 8¾ x 6½ inches Gelatin silver print 6½ x 8¾ inches Gelatin silver print 8 x 10 inches 6⅝ x 9½ inches 6¾ X 8¾ inches 7½ x 9½ inches Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch Albert Renger-Patzsch John Divola John Divola John Divola Astwerk einer Solitärfichte, 1957 Zeche Katharina, Essen, 1954/55 Zeche Katharina, 1954/55 Vandalism (74V01), 1974 Vandalism (74V13), 1974 Vandalism (74V18), 1974 Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print 8¾ x 6½ inches 8¾ x 6½ inches 8¾ x 6½ inches 7 x 7 inches 7 x 7 inches 7 x 7 inches 6 7 John Divola Mark Ruwedel Mark Ruwedel Frank Breuer Henry Wessel, Jr. Lewis Baltz Vandalism (74V03), 1974 Dusk #17 (Antelope Valley #219), Dusk, #21 (Antelope Valley #230), Untitled, 2000 Walapai, Arizona, 1971 Continuous Fire Polar Circle, 1986 Gelatin silver print 2008 2008 Two c-prints Gelatin silver print Seven gelatin silver prints 7 x 7 inches Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Each 18½ x 39⅝ inches 8 x 11¾ inches Each 6⅛ x 8⅝ inches 11 x 14 inches 11 x 14 inches Mark Ruwedel Mark Ruwedel Mark Ruwedel Frank Gohlke Frank Gohlke Frank Gohlke Dusk #5 (Antelope Valley #63B), Dusk #6 (Antelope Valley #65), 2007 Dusk #51 (Salton Sea), 2010 Grain elevators, Minneapolis, 1974 Landscape with Irrigation Canal, Cyclone (dust precipitator)— 2007 Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print Albuquerque, N.M., 1974 Minneapolis, 1974 Gelatin silver print 11 x 14 inches 11 x 14 inches 14 x 17 inches Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print 11 x 14 inches 13¾ x 13⅞ inches 14 x 17 inches Mark Ruwedel Henry Wessel , Jr. Henry Wessel, Jr. Frank Gohlke Frank Gohlke Lewis Baltz Dusk #9 (Antelope Valley #74), 2007 Forty Real Estate Photographs, Buena Vista, Colorado, 1973 Steel Elevator and Shed, near Grain Elevator, Midway Area 1, 24— The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, Gelatin silver print