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

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.

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.