New Topographics (sold)

€125,00

Author: Anthony Bannon, Britt Salvesen et al.
Publisher: Center for Creative Photography / Steidl
Year: 2009
ISBN: 978-3-86521-827-8

Hardcover, 304 pages, English, 30 x 40 cm
Condition: very good

New topographics

New topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz) whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscapeMany of the photographers associated with new topographics including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon and Bernd and Hiller Becher, were inspired by the man-made, selecting subject matter that was matter-of-fact. Parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses were all depicted with a beautiful stark austerity, almost in the way early photographers documented the natural landscape. An exhibition at the International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York featuring these photographers also revealed the growing unease about how the natural landscape was being eroded by industrial development.

The new topographics were to have a decisive influence on later photographers including those artists who became known as the Düsseldorf School of Photography.

(text TATE)

Robert Adams . 
Lewis Baltz . 
Bernd and Hilla Becher .
Joe Deal . 
Frank. Gohlke . 
Nicolas Nixon .
John Schott . 
Stephen Shore . 
Henry Wessel, Jr.

This book is dedicated to the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, held in 1975 at the International Museum of Photography, and demonstrates both the historical significance of the show and its continued relevance in today’s culture.

The exhibition brought together Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Henry Wessel. Signalling the emergence of a new approach to landscape, the exhibition effectively gave a name to a movement. Even today, the catchphrase New Topographics is used to characterize the work of artists not yet born when the exhibition was held. New Topographics has since come to mark a paradigm shift. The show occurred just as photography took its place within the contemporary art world. Arguably the last traditionally photographic style, New Topographics was also the first photo-conceptual style. Illustrated with selected works from the 1975 exhibition, installation views, and contextual comparisons, this new edition also includes an illustrated checklist of the show and an extensive bibliography.

(text publisher)

Out of stock