Lewis Baltz (1945–2014)

Two separate volumes (artists' books), each printed boards with cloth spine, each with a folded broadsheet laid-in (with English texts), contained in a printed chipboard box (with metal clasps at corners), no dust jackets as issued. Published on the occasion of the 1995 exhibition Geschichten von Verlangen und Macht mit Lewis Baltz und Slavica Perkovic at the Museum für Photographie, Braunschweig, Germany (traveled to numerous venues). This edition was limited to 1500 hardbound copies.

Volume I, Lewis Baltz, Die Toten von Newport Beach (the Deaths in Newport Beach): 60 pp. with numerous black and white illustrations (with four horizontal and two vertical 2-page gatefolds). Photographs (rephotographed from newspapers and other documentation pertaining to the California murder trial in the 1940s) and text (in German, and in English in broadsheet laid-in) by Lewis Baltz. Volume II, Slavica Perkovic, Sechs Geschichten für vier Männer (Six Stories for Four Men): 48 pp. with 33 four-color reproductions (with two vertical 2-page gatefolds). Photographs and text (in German, and in English in broadsheet laid-in) by Slavica Perkovic.… (más)

Baltz's photography here can be seen as a late modernistic irony, using the technique (large format camera, sharpness through the frame and long tonal scale prints, etc.) and parameters of modernism aesthetic (e.g. choice of contemporary, often industrial subject matter, strong graphic structure, et, al.) reduced to almost empty absurdity. More often he is seen as a master of minimalism, its own fine art style, and commended for it. The work can also been considered as social information and commentary, what is the nature of our industrial environment? Here it is seen as as barren, clarified form with no more than needed for its functions. However interpreted,, this work in exhibitions and publications had considerable impact… (más)