{"data":{"id":"3944","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":3944,"topgoose_id":2724,"tms_id":3944,"display_name":"Lewis Baltz","sort_name":"Baltz Lewis","display_date":"1945–2014","begin_date":"1945","end_date":"2014","biography":"\u003cp\u003eIn 1975 work by Lewis Baltz was included\nin a groundbreaking exhibition at the\nInternational Museum of Photography at the\nGeorge Eastman House in Rochester,\nNew York. \u003cem\u003eNew Topographics: Photographs\nof a Man-Altered Landscape featured\u003c/em\u003e\nten photographers whose work considered\nthe impact of postwar industrialization\nand urbanization on natural and built\nenvironments. Often using large-format\ncameras, the photographers recorded\nthese developments with an unsentimental\napproach that aimed for objectivity,\nforswearing the picturesque scenes and\nromanticized vistas that historically had\ndominated the genre of landscape\nphotography. Baltz has produced series\nof photographs of industrial parks,\nwarehouses, construction sites, recreational\nareas, and centers of technological and\nscientific research. He frequently\nphotographs the same subject multiple\ntimes over a period of years, the better to\nregister change and transformation.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/8192\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Tract Houses\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e is a portfolio of\ntwenty-five black-and-white photographs\nof the exteriors of new homes under\nconstruction on the outskirts of Los Angeles.\nBaltz took the images between 1969 and\n1971, during the peak of the exodus from\ncity to suburb, and his photographs\ndocument the region’s vernacular period\narchitecture in a straightforward, deadpan\nmanner, exposing cheap construction\nand banal details. Yet the photographs are\nneither compositionally nor aesthetically\nneutral: here, for example, the arrangement\nof windows and air vents creates a loose\ngrid—an abstract pattern that is particularly\nstriking in black and white.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500011333","wikidata_id":"Q353266","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:33:55.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-13T07:05:10.624-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/3944/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/3944/exhibitions"}}}}