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News from PRINCETON UNIVERSITY For immediate release: July 2, 2002 CONTACT: Ruta Smithson (609) 258-3763 |
Photographs by Lewis Baltz on View at Princeton University Art MuseumExhibition Dates: September 14 through January 19, 2003 PRINCETON -- The exhibition "Lewis Baltz: Nevada and Other Photographs," on view from September 14, 2002, through January 19, 2003, at the Princeton University Art Museum, will highlight a significant recent acquisition of work by photographer Lewis Baltz. It includes a complete edition of his 1978 portfolio Nevada, as well as selections from two other projects, The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California and Candlestick Point. Born in 1945, Baltz first came to prominence as part of the 1975 exhibition "New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape," which recognized a shift in landscape photography away from a heroic vision of the American wilderness toward the often banal character of a growing suburbia, notes Toby Jurovics, associate curator of photography, who organized the present exhibition at Princeton. Baltz's photographs in "New Topographics" consisted entirely of images of an industrial warehouse complex in Southern California, several of which are on view in this exhibition. Tightly composed photographs of blank concrete walls and prefabricated buildings, the images convey a sense of the claustrophobia and anonymity of urban life. In Nevada, Baltz's next major effort, a new narrative style emerged. Tracing the incursion of housing developments into the desert valleys surrounding Reno, Nevada, Baltz alternated panoramic views of the horizon with photographs of construction sites, trailer parks, and city streets to show an open landscape slowly being devoured. Nevada was the first step toward a pictorial methodology of intensely detailed mapping that Baltz was to explore over the next decade, culminating in his epic project, Candlestick Point. Photographed between 1984 and 1988, the series explored in grim detail a landscape scraped bare of almost all natural references, pinned between the airport and the ballpark just south of San Francisco. The project is represented in this exhibition by a suite of nine photographs, also acquired by the museum in 2002. In the adjoining gallery, selections from the Peter C. Bunnell Collection will be on view through October 27. The exhibition includes recent works by Paul Berger, Tina Barney, Robbert Flick, Bill Jacobson, and a monumental photogram, The Rog Chant, by Susan Rankaitis. The works were donated by the artists in honor of Professor Bunnell's retirement from the Department of Art and Archaeology and the museum this past spring. The museum is open to the public without charge. Free highlights tours of the collection are given every Saturday at 2:00 p.m. The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and on Sunday from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. It is closed on Monday and major holidays. The Museum Shop closes at 5:00 p.m. The Museum is located in the middle of the Princeton University campus. Due to construction, visitors should use the staff entrance on the west side of the building, across the green from Dodd Hall. For further information, please call (609) 258-3788, or visit our new Web site at www.princetonartmuseum.org. |