New Topographics
New topographic was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz) whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape.
Many of the photographers associated with new topographics including Robert Adams Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon and Bernd and Hiller Becher were inspired by the man-made, selecting subject matter that was matter-of-fact. Parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses were all depicted with a beautiful stark austerity, almost in the way early photographers documented the natural landscape. An exhibition at the International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York featuring these photographers also revealed the growing unease about how the natural landscape was being eroded by industrial development.
What is new Topographics a reaction to?
The stark, beautifully printed images of the mundane but oddly fascinating topography was both a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around them, and a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental.
Historical context:
- Inflation and labor unrest. The country’s main economic concern in the immediate post-war years was inflation. …
- The baby boom and suburbia. Making up for lost time, millions of returning veterans soon married and started families…
- Isolation and splitting of the family unit, pharmaceuticals and mental health problems
- Vast distances, road networks and mobility
Common Themes and Concepts of New Topographics
Their photographs depicted the built environment, suburban sprawl, industrial structures, and the mundane aspects of daily life, that were taking place in the American landscape of the post- War 2, with a sense of objectivity and an almost scientific detachment.