Art Madrid'23 – Lewis Baltz work can be seen in Madrid in the MAPFRE Foundation, in the Bárbara de Braganza showroom.

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

 

 

 

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.