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Publisher Note

In 1989 German artist Lothar Baumgarten dedicated six months to following America's railroad tracks across the land with camera, dictating recorder, and pen and notebook, developing an epic project he would call "Carbon," which would incorporate several thousand black-and-white and color photographs, large-scale wall drawings, journals, audio tapes, texts, and graphic design and typography studies into an eponymous limited-edition publication now regarded as one of the most beautiful artist's books of the late 20th century. At the Dallas Museum of Art, Baumgarten has installed by far the most expansive presentation of this legendary project yet mounted, including three hugely expansive drawings combining abstracted railway engineering monuments with a polyphony of railway names that command the walls of the vault, more than 100 photographs, and a rich selection of art materials related to the development of the artist's book. "Carbon" is a poetic look at the impact of the railroad on the geography, people, and history of America. It addresses the beautiful landscapes opened up and then frequently defiled by development, the human accomplishment of settling the land that came at the cost of the displacement and decimation of Native Americans, and the decline of the railroads themselves as the source of powerful metaphor as they became simply industrial transportation.

Publisher
Release Place Los Angeles, United States of America
Release Date 1992 – 1993
Credits
Printrun 1750
Dimensions 39.0 × 31.5 cm
Pages 143

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Artphilein Library

last updated 813 days ago

Data Contributor: Christoph Schifferli

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