1
Japan offered an opportunity for Thomas Struth to extend further his project to photograph urban structures and space. He made a first group of work in Japan that he considered to be of interest, in the district of Shinjuku in Tokyo in 1986, picking up on some of the pictorial devices he had used in New York and in Europe. At the same time, he recognised that working in Japan necessitated a further loosening of a systematic approach to picture making.
2
The New Industrial Parks is part of a monographic series developed in the 1970s (The Tract Houses, Maryland, Nevada and Park City) wherein the artist Lewis Baltz deals with wide-ranging cultural and philosophical questions about industrial zones in the urban landscape. By focusing his attention on the familiar, Baltz created a powerful work in his critical photographic approach to the built environment.
3
Robert Adams is an American photographer best known for his images of the American West. Offering solemn meditations on the landscapes of California, Colorado, and Oregon, Adams’s black-and-white photos document the changes wrought by humans upon nature. In the 1970s, Adams released the book The New West (1974), a year later it was included in the seminal exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.
4
Nicholas Nixon is known for the ease and intimacy of his black and white large format photographs. Nixon has photographed porch life in the rural south, schools in and around Boston, cityscapes, sick and dying people, and the intimacy of couples. Recording his subjects close and with meticulous detail, he facilitates an emotional connection between the viewer and the subject. Images of the vast cityscapes of New York and Boston, at once both ordered and chaotic, were part of one of the most influential exhibitions of the seventies, New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape at the George Eastman House.
5
For four decades, Bay Area photographer Henry Wessel has observed and documented the brilliant light, vernacular architecture, and social landscape of Northern and Southern California. In the 1970s, Wessel became part of a generation of artists who challenged and expanded the categories of landscape and documentary photography, foregoing traditional views of pristine nature in favor of straightforward and personal depictions of the built environment. Exploring the territory where nature and culture meet, Wessel's deadpan pictures share the spontaneity and authenticity of snapshots, combining disarming frankness with irreverent humor. His low-key style matches the modest nature of his subject matter: he has found an inexhaustible richness in the aesthetics of the everyday, turning the least monumental of subjects into a kind of personal poetry.
6
Lee Friedlander, an influential American photographer, is known for his innovative scenes of city streets which often feature candid portraits of people, signs, and reflections of himself in storefront windows. Friedlander has the ability to organize an endless amount of visual information in dynamic compositions and makes humorous and poignant images among the chaos of city life. Friedlander’s street photography captures the abrupt overlaps of light and content in urban landscapes. Friedlander was a key figure in curator John Szarkowski’s 1967 New Documents exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, both of which identified his photographs with those of other social landscape photographers such as Garry Winogrand, Bruce Davidson, Danny Lyon, and Diane Arbus.
1
Japan offered an opportunity for Thomas Struth to extend further his project to photograph urban structures and space. He made a first group of work in Japan that he considered to be of interest, in the district of Shinjuku in Tokyo in 1986, picking up on some of the pictorial devices he had used in New York and in Europe. At the same time, he recognised that working in Japan necessitated a further loosening of a systematic approach to picture making.
2
The New Industrial Parks is part of a monographic series developed in the 1970s (The Tract Houses, Maryland, Nevada and Park City) wherein the artist Lewis Baltz deals with wide-ranging cultural and philosophical questions about industrial zones in the urban landscape. By focusing his attention on the familiar, Baltz created a powerful work in his critical photographic approach to the built environment.
3
Robert Adams is an American photographer best known for his images of the American West. Offering solemn meditations on the landscapes of California, Colorado, and Oregon, Adams’s black-and-white photos document the changes wrought by humans upon nature. In the 1970s, Adams released the book The New West (1974), a year later it was included in the seminal exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.
4
Nicholas Nixon is known for the ease and intimacy of his black and white large format photographs. Nixon has photographed porch life in the rural south, schools in and around Boston, cityscapes, sick and dying people, and the intimacy of couples. Recording his subjects close and with meticulous detail, he facilitates an emotional connection between the viewer and the subject. Images of the vast cityscapes of New York and Boston, at once both ordered and chaotic, were part of one of the most influential exhibitions of the seventies, New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape at the George Eastman House.
5
For four decades, Bay Area photographer Henry Wessel has observed and documented the brilliant light, vernacular architecture, and social landscape of Northern and Southern California. In the 1970s, Wessel became part of a generation of artists who challenged and expanded the categories of landscape and documentary photography, foregoing traditional views of pristine nature in favor of straightforward and personal depictions of the built environment. Exploring the territory where nature and culture meet, Wessel's deadpan pictures share the spontaneity and authenticity of snapshots, combining disarming frankness with irreverent humor. His low-key style matches the modest nature of his subject matter: he has found an inexhaustible richness in the aesthetics of the everyday, turning the least monumental of subjects into a kind of personal poetry.
6
Lee Friedlander, an influential American photographer, is known for his innovative scenes of city streets which often feature candid portraits of people, signs, and reflections of himself in storefront windows. Friedlander has the ability to organize an endless amount of visual information in dynamic compositions and makes humorous and poignant images among the chaos of city life. Friedlander’s street photography captures the abrupt overlaps of light and content in urban landscapes. Friedlander was a key figure in curator John Szarkowski’s 1967 New Documents exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, both of which identified his photographs with those of other social landscape photographers such as Garry Winogrand, Bruce Davidson, Danny Lyon, and Diane Arbus.
