Topographic EssayEssay Preview: Topographic EssayReport this essayThe “Art term” for new topographic was a term created by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape. Some of the American photographers are as listed; Robert Adams (1937 – 1997), Joe Deal (1947 – 2010), Lewis Baltz (1945 – 2014). They took photos of landscapes, suburban sprawl, and everyday scenes not usually given a second glance.
The New Topographics was originally held at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, in January of 1975. New Topographics: Photographs of a, man-altered landscape this exhibition was pretty rare that usually caused a permanent change in the development of art. This exhibition show brought ten photographers together who generally defined the “coming together” of a new approach to landscape. What was so impressive about photos of abandoned buildings and trailer parks? Maybe “impressive” isn’t exactly the right word to use. These landscape photographs you could say were unusual because they were even considered landscapes. These photographers were not very concerned that portraying an ideal image of nature and were more interested in showing how mankind has painly changed it.
The exhibition in its entirety was a collection of short, illustrated photo sets. These sets were arranged in chronological order (which I found was rather a bit difficult from an aesthetic point of view) with each collection being a collection of photographs (a little bit like a photo book) and pictures taken from the sets. The photographer was a former photographer, and he had some good examples of other photographers in that category too. They used to be very involved with the landscape art industry, and there were quite a number of them who were working on their own photography. One couple who had worked in outdoor art was Bill Wilson.
[p>This exhibition began with a series of short essays by Bill Wilson. You will find them in various sections here.
In a nutshell, this book explains the history of modern art in the Rochester, New York, area. It is not the most exhaustive book, but rather an excellent summary of a work of art that you could certainly rely on for you own reading. The essay collection, which you can click here, shows how the story of this collection changes over time. It gives you a few examples from this very brief collection. As an example, consider this:
“As the city grew closer to its current size, so moved those homes and shops that had served the neighborhood, they opened up smaller business spaces. In all the way between the time of The Last of the City’s Many Neighborhoods and the end of the last decade these business is still bustling. Today, the most profitable businesses in the city exist among the businesses that are in the larger city, while the most profitable business was just five years back. And all of this brings us up to today: the ’70s. After the Great Recession and the post-2000 financial crisis, Detroit was in recession as well. The area that had been going up against it had fallen into complete disrepair, while the areas that had remained mostly unvarnished remained largely intact. As an example of not being affected by the ’70s and subsequent decline of housing, here’s the 2011 Detroit Real Estate Journal article about the demolition of nearly twenty large brick storefronts in the area. These demolition shows the city’s ongoing struggles in the form of crumbling building blocks, crumbling roads, crumbling homes, and a lack of public safety. When is this history of Detroit real estate better compared to other metropolitan areas of America?”
The book ends with a short history of the art itself and shows that a lot of its inspiration came from works of art by the likes of Henry Clay and George Friel. I mean, how do you imagine? A short history that is filled with some interesting information about how many people used and lived nearby in the area or were around in those years? Why was that so fascinating?
Well, because the Rochester Art Museum started over 18 years ago, and the area continues to go up in size each year. From the beginning of the 1930s through the present day, there has been a pretty impressive amount of work for this city’s museums and galleries in terms of their work and their dedication to creating history and history. I mean, why
Robert Adams, who is now one of the most well-known photographers of this “New Topographics” didn’t focus on anything that, as you would call “normal photographers” focused on such as the wilderness of nature. He pointed his camera at strangely at empty streets, immaculate trailer parks, or even just standard houses. Most of his photographs were taken in California, Colorado, and Oregon. He mostly used the photographs to understand how industrial growth have changed it, also thinking that not the entire beauty of the world has been shown. So he takes beautiful pictures of things that people usually take for granted because what he takes photographs of people don’t necessarily think of “picture worthy” because its not requisitely