New Topographics

‘New Topographics’ are also widely known as photographs of a ‘Man-made landscape’, as they display the contrast of industrialisation into nature. This exhibition was curated by William Jenkins in the October of 1975. Jenkins recruited a group of landscape photographers including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal, Frank Gholke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore and Henry Wessel Jr. He also later invited the German couple, Bernd and Hilla Becher. The New Topographics movement projects the beauty of industrialism incorporating into the natural world, the exhibition had very mixed reviews by the public and some saw the art as a juxtaposing, pleasant view on landscapes with the mixing of industrialism and nature, whereas others believed it proved that industrialisation is ruining the natural beauty of the planet.

Examples of New Topographics

The movement of New Topographics was created almost in retaliation to the romanticism movement, that was popularised by artists such as Ansel Adams. The group of photographers wanted to photograph against the tradition of landscape of photography, that romanticism made unrealistic to the modern human eye.