Lewis Baltz work can be seen in Madrid in the MAPFRE Foundation, in the Bárbara de Braganza showroom.

Lewis Baltz work can be seen in Madrid in the MAPFRE Foundation, in the Bárbara de Braganza showroom.

Apr 11, 2017

exhibitions

Lewis Baltz: “Piazza Pugliese”

 

 

Lewis Baltz (Newport Beach, California, 1945-Paris, 2014) was an American photographer who was first made known by the movement New topographics along with other well-known names like Robert Adams, Bern and Hilla Becher or Nicholas Nixon. Recognized as one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, he was able to impose his idea of "landscape" away from the idealized canons in which other artists worked. He used as a medium of expression the cultural line of the 60s and 70s. He was a contemporary artist to the events that surrounded him.

 

 

 

“Newport Beach” © Lewis Baltz

 

 

 

Baltz began his artistic career at the young age of 12 years old. After absorbing all the knowledge of its mentor, William Current, it took its own way capturing the consequences of the landscape of the American ideals. The exhibition, presented as an anthology of the artist, brings together a vision of his entire career. The new media era and the events surrounding him were his source of inspiration. The binomial between historical fact and simulated make the loss of access to reality is reflected in works like "Rule without exception". As noted by the curator of the exhibition "Lewis Baltz was able to create his own language, to make us see the urban landscape as a busy place."

 

 

 

View of the exhibition Le, “Sala Bárbara de Braganza” © Cortesía Fundación Mapfre

 

 

The exhibition has more than 400 photographs and is organized chronologically, posing a dialogue between the first and last work of the photographer. The retrospective includes, in addition to his first series in black and white (made in the 60s and 70s), his work in color, with works such as "Ronde de Nuit", "The Deaths in Newport" or "Venezia Marguera". The exhibition can be visited until June 4, and is curated by Urs Stahel.

 

 

 

Lewis Baltz, "Continuous Fire Polar Circle no.1", of the series  "Continuous Fire Polar Circle", 1986. © The Lewis Baltz Trust, 1992

 

 

 

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exhibitions

The CEART opens this Thursday, November 14th in the room A an exhibition dedicated to this master of photography, which will be open to the public until February 9th. The show includes one of the artist's latest projects, focused on the hard work carried out by the miners of Serra Pelada, an open gold mine in the heart of Brazil where employees daily risked their lives.

Immigration, poverty, marginal life, slave labour, man's relationship with the land, the use of natural resources... are issues that have always fascinated Salgado. From the beginning of his career as a photographer, his work has opted to give visibility to the most disadvantaged groups and to create with his images a vivid and impressive visual story without fakes. With a raw black and white, this author's work transits between photo-reportage and naturalistic photography.

And the idea that permeates all his work is human dignity. Salgado portrays employees, miners and gatherers from a purely humanistic approach that wants to value their integrity, their strength and their resilience.

“If you photograph a human, so that he is not represented in a noble way, there is no reason to take the picture. That is my way of seeing things.”

Salgado entered this discipline long after completing his studies in economics between Brazil and the United States, and a doctorate in statistics in France. But in 1973 his life took a turn, and he decided to start his career as a photographer. He achieved to work at the Gamma Agency and Magnum Photos for more than 15 years until in 1994 he founded his own agency “Amazonas Imagen”.

With the “Gold” project, the photographer portrays a harsh reality that takes place in the Serra Pelada mine, a name given to a totally devastated and anarchically excavated mining enclave, the world's largest open-pit gold mine, through which more than 50,000 people have passed. In the heat of the legends about the mysterious “El Dorado”, the enthusiasm for this precious metal led to the development of strenuous exploitation practices for the workers and to originate tales of grief and glory, of human victory and defeat between the soil, the tunnels and the cargo baskets.

The CEART exhibition brings together Salgado's full portfolio in his characteristical black and white and large-format photographs that leave no one indifferent.

 

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