Seismic Shift: Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal and California Landscape Photography, 1944 - 1984

by Colin Westerbeck, Susan Laxton, Jason Weems

The now-legendary 1975 New Topographics show represented a true ''seismic shift'' in American landscape photography, moving past the romantic legacy of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston to the minimalist-influenced work typified by Lewis Baltz and Joe Deal. This catalog of 2011's Seismic Shift exhibition offers a comprehensive narrative of California photographic history made by the 43 featured artists; it includes 58 reproductions (mostly black-and-white) and essays by curator Colin Westerbeck, photographic historian Susan Laxton and regionalist Jason Weems. The exhibition is one of over 60 funded by the Getty Research Institute's initiative looking at Southern California art 1945-1980, called Pacific Standard Time.

96 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2011

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

The pull quote pages from Baltz and Deal interviews are great. The essays, not so much. I would have liked to read more of the interview material. And maybe contrasting Ansel and the Weston's photos with the New Topographics was OK on the wall of this show, but it didn't really work that well in book form. You can't cover 35 years of photo history with 58 images. That's barely enough to cover the highlights of just the New Topographics.

I highly recommend checking out Britt Salvesen's New Topographics book, and also Reframing the New Topographics instead.