Fluorescent Tube

Lewis Baltz made this photograph, ‘Fluorescent Tube’ sometime before his death in 2014. It's a small black and white photo, a document of something discarded, a broken fluorescent tube on a gravelly surface. The light is even, almost indifferent, across the grey stones and broken glass. The tube isn't presented as beautiful, or even particularly interesting, yet there's something compelling about the texture and the ordinariness of it all. This photograph reminds me of the work of Ed Ruscha, another artist with an interest in the mundane. Baltz’s photograph acknowledges the art making process, presenting a moment of everyday existence as a deliberate act of looking. The composition is simple, the broken tube creating a kind of accidental line across the frame. There is an ongoing dialogue here between the formal and the informal, elevating the discarded to a form of art. This photograph is not about beauty but about awareness, a conscious choice to find interest in the overlooked.