Landscape
New Topographics Landscape
The Land is America
“The land is to American art what mythology, religion and belief were to European art. From nearly the beginning of American art, painters made roman c, idyllic pain ngs of the land. Those portrayals con nued for almost two centuries. They went up the Hudson River, west to Niagara Falls, across the great rivers of the heartland, over the West and her mountains un l finally the land was so used-up by Americans (and ar sts) that full-field abstrac on was the only way le . ” Tyler Green h p://blogs.ar nfo.com/modernartnotes/2010/01/the-new-new-topographics-at-la/
RALPH EARL American, 1751-1801 Looking East from Denny Hill, 1800 Alexandre Clausel (French, 1802–1884) Landscape near Troyes, ca. 1855 Daguerreotype; 10.5 x 14.6 cm (4 1/8 x 5 3/4 in.) George Eastman House, Rochester Victor Regnault (1810-78), View of the Seine at Sèvres, circa 1852, salt print, 31.4 by 42.8 cm Louis-Auguste Bisson (1814-1876) and Auguste-Rosalie Bisson (1826-1900). Mont Blanc, vu du jardin", 1858. Album Haute-Savoie. Le mont Blanc et ses glaciers. Souvenir du voyage de LL. MM. l'empereur et l'impératrice, par MM. Bisson frères photographes de Sa Majesté l'empereur. Afong Lai, Entrance to the Bankers' Glen, view looking down Yuen-foo River, China 1870. “A Harvest of Death.” This image was taken by Timothy H. O’Sullivan for Alexander Gardner circa July 5-6, 1863. h p://www.ge ysburgdaily.com/?p=13862 Ansel Adams Early Landscape Photography in America
• Spirit Father of American Landscape • Nature before photography •Conserva onist •Zone System
“The nega ve is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance.” Jack Dykinga
• Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist • Purpose of preserva on and protec on • 4x5 digital camera • Interna onal League of Conserva on Photographers (www.ilcp.com), an organiza on of photographers working to protect threatened wild lands along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“If you don’t adapt to the changing mes... I’m going in a different direc on. I think more than ever, if you don’t have a personal vision, a dis nc ve type of photography, you’re doomed. For me, it’s really always been about the image. I’m increasingly aware of which ones are really good for me and which ones I really like. And now I’m able to just take the chance.” • Conserva on Carr Cli on •From 1978 to 2002, Cli on used a Toyo 4x5 field camera. Since 2002, the majority of his images have been made with the Pentax 67II using Fujichrome Velvia 50 and 100. A er processing and edi ng, these images are scanned and fine-tuned in Photoshop
The feeling of discovery must have been very intoxica ng. Originality wasn’t a problem. I truly envy the early photographers because it really is for me about wildness, solitude and discovery. I would gladly sacrifice the computer and digital world in a second for their place and me in history.” Tom Till David Muench
• Doesn’t talk about his camera but about the land • Feels obligated to render his subject truthfully • Crucial part of his process it to teach about the wilderness • 4x5 and Canon digital – likes the interac on with image in the field. Mitch Dobrowner The Storms • Mitch has fond memories of storms from childhood. • Passion today is landscapes in nas est weather. Mitch Dobrowner
New Topographics
• Eastman House curator William Jenkins – Rochester 1975 • Photographers who showed the docu-truth about how Americans were trea ng the land.
Robert Adams (United States, b. 1937), Mobile Homes, Jefferson County, Colorado, 1973. 10 Leading Photographers
Robert Adams Lewis Baltz Bernd and Hilla Becher Joe Deal Frank Gohlke Nicholas Nixon John Scho Stephen Shore Henry Wessel Jr.
New Topographics
The 1975 exhibi on has come to be understood as marking a paradigm shi . Roman c idealiza on of the landscape gave way to a cooler appraisal, more engaged with the everyday built environment and more a uned to the conceptual issues of the broader art field. Photographs in New Topographics emphasize aspects of the emerging, postwar American landscape: expansive parking lots detailed in Frank Gohlke’s "Landscape", Los Angeles (1974); subdevelopment tract housing documented by Robert Adams; idiosyncra c historic motels of Route 66 surveyed by John Scho ’s Route 66 Motels series; and industrial parks captured in Lewis Baltz’s New Industrial Parks series. h p://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=34004
New Topographics
Each photographer in the New Topographics exhibi on was represented by 10 prints. All but Stephen Shore worked in black and white. The prints were in a 20 cm × 25 cm (8″×10″) format except for Joe Deal (32 cm × 32 cm), Frank Gohlke (24 cm × 24 cm – close enough to 8”×10”), and the Bechers with typical European (for the me) 30 cm × 40 cm prints.
Technically, half the photographers were working with 8″×10″ (20 cm × 25 cm) large format view cameras; those who were not were using either square medium format (Deal, Gohlke), or in the case of Lewis Baltz 35 mm Technical Pan, a slow and high-defini on Kodak film that the photographer printed on 8″x10″ paper. Only Scho and Wessel were using regular 35 mm cameras and film.
New Topographics
Jenkins used the term TOPOGRAPHY to make a connec on to such 19th century survey photographs as Timothy O’Sullivan and William Henry Jackson, who documented the geographical expedi ons that were then opening up the West for white se lement.
h p://places.designobserver.com/feature/new-and-old-topographics/12878/ Ed Ruscha
• Photo books influenced curator William Jenkins • Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966), a book of con nuous photographs of a two and one half mile stretch of the 24 mile boulevard. • In 1973, following the model of Every Building on the Sunset Strip, he photographed the en re length of Hollywood Boulevard with a motorized camera. Ed Ruscha Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966 Ed Ruscha Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966 Robert Adams
• b. 1937 in Orange, NJ. • Guggenheim, MacArthur Fellowship, Hasselblad Award • Polio age 12 and suffered asthma. Moved to Denver. • B.A. University of Redlands, CA. • Ph.D. in English • Moved back to Colorado, began to photograph in 1964. Began full me in 1970. Robert Adams
Ar st Statement
“Many have asked, poin ng incredulously toward a sweep of tract homes and billboards, why picture that? The ques on sounds simple, but it implies a difficult issue—why open our eyes anywhere but in undamaged places like na onal parks?One reason is, of course, that we do not live in parks, that we need to improve things at home, and that to do it we have to see the facts without blinking. We need to watch, for example, as an old woman, alone, is forced to carry her groceries in August heat over a fi y acre parking lot; then we know, safe from the comfor ng lies of profiteers, that we must begin again.Paradoxically, however, we also need to see the whole geography, natural and man-made, to experience a peace; all land, no ma er what has happened to it, has over it a grace, an absolutely persistent beauty.”
-R.A., 1974 Robert Adams Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1968 Robert Adams Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1968 Robert Adams Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1968 Robert Adams Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1968 Robert Adams (United States, b. 1937); "Tract House, Westminster, Colorado, " Robert Adams (United States, b. 1937). "Tract Housing, North Glenn and Thornton, Colorado," 1973. Lewis Baltz
• b. 1945, Newport Beach, CA. • B.F.A. from San Francisco Art Ins tute in 1969. • M.F.A. from Claremont Graduate University. • NEA, Guggenheim grants Lewis Baltz (United States, b. 1945). North Wall, Automated Marine Interna onal, 1641 McGaw, Irvine 1974. Ansel Adams. Church, Taos Pueblo. Front view of entrance, "Church, Taos Pueblo Na onal Historic Landmark, New Mexico, 1942"
Lewis Baltz (United States, b. 1945). "East Wall, McGaw Laboratories, 1821 Langley, Costa Mesa," from the series "New Industrial Parks," 1974. Lewis Baltz (United States, b. 1945). "South Corner, Riccar America Company, 3184 Pullman, Costa Mesa," from the series "New Industrial Parks," 1974. Lewis Baltz (United States, b. 1945). South wall, resources recovery systems, McGaw, Irvine, 1974. Joe Deal
• b. 1947 in Topeka, KS • B.F.A. in 1970 at Kansas City Art Ins tute. • Granted conscien ous-objector status and sent to Eastman House to work as guard and janitor. • M.F.A. at University of New Mexico in 1974. • Taught at University of Riverside and started photography program and helped found the CA Museum of Photography. • 1989 Dean of School of Art at Washington University in St. Louis. • 1999 Provost at the R.I. School of Design. • Died June, 2010. Joe Deal (United States, b. 1947). "Un tled View (Albuquerque)," 1974, printed 1975. Joe Deal "Un tled View (Albuquerque)," 1974, printed 1975. Joe Deal (United States, b. 1947). "Un tled View (Albuquerque)," 1974, printed 1975. Joe Deal Sunset Beach, Ca. 1978 Joe Deal, “Backyard, Diamond Bar, California,” 1980 Bernd and Hilla Becher
• Bernhard (Bernd) Becher b. 1931, d. 2007 • Hilla Becher, b. 1934 • know for their typologies of industrial buildings and structures • Bernd studied pain ng at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Kunste Stu gart from 1953-1956. Then studied typography at Dusseldorfer Kunstakademie from 1959-61. • Hilla was a photographer’s appren ce, studied at Dusseldorfer Kunstakademie, and did freelance on product. Bernd and Hilla Becher (Germany, 1931-2007 and b. 1934). "Pit Head, Bear Valley, Pennsylvania," 1974. Four gela n silver prints, each 12 x 16 inches. Bernd and Hilla Becher (Germany, 1931-2007 and b. 1934). "Harry E. Colliery Coal Breaker, Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania," 1974. Eight gela n silver prints, each 16 x 12 inches. Henry Wessel Jr.
• b. 1942 in Teaneck, N.J. • B.A. from Penn State in 1966 • M.F.A. from State University in NY Buffalo in 1972 • Guggenheim • Show at MoMA in 1971 • Faculty at San Francisco Art Ins tute Henry Wessel Jr. (United States, b. 1942). "Hollywood," 1972. Henry Wessel Jr. “Nevada," 1975. Henry Wessel Jr. “Albany, CA," 1972. Henry Wessel Jr. “Buena Vista," 1972. Henry Wessel Jr. " Tucson, Ariz.," 1974. Henry Wessel Jr. "Hollywood," 1972. Nicholas Nixon
• b. 1947 in Detroit, MI. • Known for his use of Large Format camera • First solo show at MoMA curated by John Szarkowski in 1976. • Subject ma er: changing urban landscape, portraits of Brown Sisters, nursing homes, the blind, sick, and dying. • NEA grants in 1976, 1980, 1987. • Guggenheim in 1977 and 1986. • Teaches part me at Massachuse s College of Art. Nicholas Nixon (United States, b. 1947). "View of the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, Boston," 1975. Nicholas Nixon " View of Cambridge from Boston University, Boston, " 1975. Nicholas Nixon (United States, b. 1947). "Buildings on Tremont Street, Boston," 1975. Frank Gohlke
• b. 1942 Texas • B.A. from U of TX Aus n in English Literature. • M.A. in English at Yale. • Met Walker Evans and studied with Paul Caponigro. • Taught at Mass Art • Guggenheim, NEA grants. Frank Gohlke (United States, b. 1942). "Landscape, Los Angeles," 1974, printed 1975. Frank Gohlke View from Harmon- Toles elevator, Happy, Texas, 1975. Frank Gohlke Grain elevator and lightning flash, Lamesa, Texas, 1975. Frank Gohlke A ermath: The Wichita Falls Tornado, 4503 McNeil Street, Looking North,” April 14, 1979 Frank Gohlke Grain elevator near Kinsley, Kansas, 1973. Frank Gohlke Grain elevator and tree, Midway area, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1973. Frank Gohlke Grain elevator under repair, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1974. Frank Gohlke Irriga on Canal, Albuquerque, N.M., 1974. John Scho
• Exhibited from 1968-1980 • Studied photography and history • NEA grant in 1973 • Studied and directed film • Professor in Dept. of Cinema & Media Studies at Carleton College since 1979. John Scho (United States, b. 1944). Un tled, from the series "Route 66 Motels," 1973. John Scho (United States, b. 1944). Un tled, from the series "Route 66 Motels," 1973. John Scho . Un tled (from the series Route 66 Motels), 1973. Stephen Shore
• b. 1947 • Self taught • Age 10 received Walker Evan’s book American Photographs which influenced him. • At 14 he presented his photographs to Edward Steichen, then curator at MoMA. He bought 3 of his works. • At 17, met Andy Warhol and frequented the Factory, photographing him and others. • Age 24 solo show at MET. • “on the road” photographs of American and Canadian landscapes. In 1972 he began using color and used 8x10. Stephen Shore
• 1974 NEA grant • 1975 Guggenheim • 1976 show at MoMA. • 1982 book Uncommon Places was a ‘bible’ for color photographers and color photography could now begin being seen as an art. • Influenced: Nan Goldin, Andreas Gursky, Mar n Parr, Joel Sternfeld, and Thomas Struth. Stephen Shore (United States, b. 1947). "Main Street, Gull Lake, Saskatchewan, August 18, 1974." 20 x 24 inches. Stephen Shore “Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1974.“ Stephen Shore “South of Klamath Falls, Oregon, July 21 1973.“ 2nd Street East and South Main Street, Kalispell, Mont., Aug. 22, 1974, Stephen Shore Pronton Avenue, Gull Lake, Saskatchewan., Aug. 18, 1974, Stephen Shore New Topographics at LACMA 2010
• More than 100 photographs • 2/3rds of original show • 20 prints of related photographers • Contemporary response to New Topographics, Center for Land Use Interpreta on presents an installa on dedicated to the theme of oil’s central role in the development of the American landscape.
• Cathy Opie: h p://lacma.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/tour-new-topographics-with-catherine-opie/
• Kim Stringfellow: h p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMKN5970IAw
• Peter Holzhauer: h p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsn2j8mzVYQ
• Amir Zaki: h p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFBpyPkfVz8 • Mark Ruwedel: h p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0_UC-jLgl4 Renewed Topographics
Le : Lewis Baltz, North Wall, Semicoa, 333 McCormick, Costa Mesa, 1974. Right: Semicoa today, with fewer trees and conspicuously missing that eclec c logo of yesteryear.
Sarah Bay Williams, Ralph M. Parsons Fellow, Wallis Annenberg Photography Department, LACMA Renewed Topographics
Le : Lewis Baltz, Southeast Corner, Semicoa, 333 McCormick, Costa Mesa, 1974 Right: Another angle of Semicoa today. They for fied their gate and built a ladder to the roof! Renewed Topographics
Le : Lewis Baltz, East Wall, Business Systems Division, Pertec, 1881 Langley, Santa Ana, 1974. Right: Today it’s Concept Development, Inc.—and that’s grime clouding the windows. Renewed Topographics
Le : Lewis Baltz, South Wall, Unoccupied Industrial Structure, 16812 Milliken, Irvine, 1974. Right: Industrial Structure today, now occupied, and with a fence nearby.
h p://lacma.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/renewed-topographics/ Renewed Topographics
Le : Frank Gohlke, Landscape, Los Angeles, 1974. Right: Photograph by Brian English. Mark Kle & Bryan Wolfe
(video link embedded) New (and Old)Topographics
Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Black Canyon, Colorado River, Looking Above from Camp 7, 1871. William Henry Jackson, Clear Creek Canon above the Forks, 1881. William Henry Fox Talbot, Banks of Loch Katrine, ca. 1845. Eugène Atget, Environs of Paris, 1910. Eugène Atget, Rue St. Rus que, 1922. Charles Sheeler, Side of White Barn, 1915. Walker Evans, Graveyard Houses and Steel Mill, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1935. Bre Weston, Un tled, Spanish Village Roo ops, 1960. Paul Caponigro, Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia, 1965. Lee Friedlander, Knoxville, Tennessee, 1971. Thomas F. Barrow, Bluff, 1975. Gordon Bushaw and Mark Kle Castle Rock, Green River, Wyoming, 1979.
Lawrence McFarland, Dave's Van, Searles Lake, California, April, 1982. Toshio Shibata, Koganezawa, Ootsuki City, Yamanashi Prefecture, March 1987, 1987. Barbara Bosworth, Mom and Dad, Rocky Mountain Na onal Forest, Colorado, 1998. Joel Sternfeld, Near Lake Powell, Arizona, August 1979. Bryan Schutmaat Jeff Bruows