concern with the relationship among power, archi-
tecture, and photography unites his work, as does a
sense of temporal urgency. A theorist and writer as
well as a photographer, Baltz is sought after as an
expert on photographic realism and the integrity of
the documentary image. Throughout his work he
engages critically in issues that are essential to con-
temporary urbanism and representation.
Born in Newport Beach, California in 1945, Baltz
was influenced by the rapid commercial development
all around him as he was growing up, as farmland
was transformed from landscape into real estate both
commerical and residential. After study at the San
Francisco Art Institute where he received his B.F.A.
in 1969, he attended the Claremont Graduate School
where he received his M.F.A. in 1971 and began his
well-known series,The Tract Houses(1969–1971), 25
images of an estate of newly erected standard houses
that depict an architecture where individuality has
been eliminated. This series led to Baltz’s inclusion in
the 1975 exhibitionNew Topographics: Photographs
of a Man-Altered Landscape, at the George Eastman
House in Rochester, New York, which united major
international figures who shared similar photographic
viewpoints, including Robert Adams, Stephen Shore,
and Bernd and Hilla Becher.
Baltz’s next project continued in this genre,
detailing the facades of 51 buildings in the second
largest industrial park development outside of the
Soviet Union inNew Industrial Parks, Irvine Cali-
fornia(1975). The photographs initially seem innoc-
uous but become frustrating with their clean,
technically precise images of factories with their
impenetrable walls. Baltz also isolates details like
openings that are utterly closed, adding a frighten-
ing mystery to the series. ‘‘You don’t know whether
they’re manufacturing pantyhose or mega death,’’
Baltz explained.
Baltz continued his intensely detailed, multi-pic-
torial mapping of the alienating effects of commer-
cial development through his prolific black and
white studies throughout the 1970s and early
1980s. These photographic documentations, most
of which are accompanied by a publication, include
The Tract Houses(1969–1971),Maryland(1976),
Nevada(1977–1978).Nevadastrikingly depicts of
the wreckage caused by development in the Nevada
desert.Park City(1980–1981) continues his inquiry
into commercial development and includes 102
8 10 inch photographs, documenting the develop-
ment of the country’s largest ski resort and the
metamorphosis of a territory, from coal mining
area to skiing complex.
In the mid-1980s, Baltz became increasingly inter-
ested in the marginal zones of urban planning, open
areas where one sees both nature and the presence of
industrialization.San Quentin Point(1982–1983) for
example features 59 photographs of detritus and
empty landscape with forensic detail as if investigat-
ing a crime scene—a land scraped bare of almost all
natural references. In this work, he increasingly
moves away from a clear narrative trajectory or
moral perspective, and from traditional perspective
and realism by isolating details, ridding the land of
recognizable markers, and reflecting the disorienta-
tioncausedbythisjunkedspace.NearReno(1986),14
photographs, also documents a terrain of scattered
seemingly meaningless objects. ForCandlestick Point
(1984–1986) Baltz scans a hilly dumping site in a
neighborhood of San Francisco. In the late 1980s, he
settled in Europe, and began to work in color, often
making larger prints for works, leading to muralistic
studies of urban surveillance such asRule Without
Exception(1991) and in the spectacularRonde de
Nuit(1992), 12 large, unframed Cibachrome prints.
His work in the 1990s uses digital photography to
further investigate the representational ability of
the photograph, juxtaposing various documetnary
genres, sometimes even breaking down the image to
unrecognizable parts, showing the limitations of
photography to reveal truth, for example in the
trilogy,Ronde du Nuit,Docile Bodies(1995), and
Politics of Bacteria(1995).These works expand his
critique of realism and maintain his emphasis on
architecture and the architectural qualities of pho-
tography while being increasingly interested in
science and technology. In his more recent work,
he has been inspired by cultural theorists Guy De-
bord and Michel Foucault and urban theorist Paul
Virilio, with their analysis of the politics of space,
power, and spectacle in postmodernity. His works
are also produced in other media besides photo-
graphic installations.Deaths in Newportwas pro-
duced as a book and CD-Rom in 1995 and in many
of his projects and productions, especially in the
1990s, Baltz has become directly involved in plan-
ning within a city or neighborhood.
Although Baltz remains frequently defined by
his inclusion in the New Topography group, he
resists easy categorization given the diversity of
his work since the 1970s. His work shares concerns
shown by other documentarians of urban land-
scapes including Charles Sheeler, Berenice Abbott,
and Walker Evans. Links can also be made with
conceptual photographic works of Ed Ruscha in
the 1960s. Uniting the work, however, is an inquiry
into photography’s ability to reveal truth, regardless
of quantity or scale of the work, a project not con-
fined to the New Topographic, social documentary,
or landscape traditions.BALTZ, LEWIS