Front Cover, image source: Artphilein Library

Notes

Clothbound

Publisher Note english italian

Beginning in 1965, but especially in the years between 1967 and 1971, Lewis Baltz made a body of work concentrated on the dialectic between simple, regular geometric forms found in the postwar industrial landscape, and the culture that generated such forms, such as stucco walls, parking lots, the sides of warehouse sheds or disused billboards baked in the steady Californian sunlight. Baltz called his works “Prototypes,” by which he meant replicable social conventions as well as model structures of replicable manufacture. Marking Baltz’s preliminary forays into a minimal aesthetic, “The Prototype Works” continued his work to capture the reality of a sprawling Western ecology gone wild.

A partire dal 1965, ma soprattutto negli anni tra il 1967 e il 1971, Lewis Baltz realizzò un insieme di opere, improntate sulla dialettica tra forme semplici, regolari e geometriche reperibili nel panorama industriale del dopoguerra e la cultura che ha generato tali forme, quali pareti in stucco, parcheggi, i lati di capannoni o cartelloni pubblicitari in disuso, esposti alla luce costante della California. Baltz ha definito queste sue opere “Prototypes”, con cui intendeva riferirsi sia a convenzioni sociali replicabili sia a modelli strutturali di fabbricazione replicabile. “The Prototype Works” costituisce per Baltz l’inizio di un’estetica minimale e la prosecuzione del suo operato per catturare la realtà di una selvaggia proliferazione occidentale.

Artist Monograph

Lewis Baltz

The Prototype Works

Publisher
Release Place Göttingen, Germany
Edition 1st edition
Release Date 2011
Credits
Artist: Lewis Baltz
Identifiers
ISBN-13: 978-3-86930-250-8
Work  
Subform Photobook
Topics California, Industrial Landscape
Methods Photography
Language English
Format Hardcover
Dimensions 27.3 × 28.6 cm
Weight 3,000 gram
Pages 188