Toshiba, Kawasaki City, Japan Possibly 1989 - 2006

This is Lewis Baltz's photograph, probably taken in Japan, showing a slice of some kind of factory interior; all pipes and ductwork and surfaces. The photo shows a factory-like space, but it doesn’t seem to be “about” the factory. It’s more like he's chasing something he sees there – a certain composition, or an overall pattern of light and dark. It's almost like an abstract painting. It’s the kind of thing you notice when you’re not really looking for anything. There’s a coldness, a machine-like feeling, but there's also a strange beauty in the order and precision of it all. I can imagine Baltz wandering around these industrial spaces, hunting for the perfect angle, the right alignment of forms, and thinking a lot about the social implications of this. It is similar to the work of the Bechers who obsessively cataloged industrial architecture. These artists are having a conversation with painting, about what can be shown, recorded, or remembered. It's like they're saying, "Hey, even this mundane place can be kind of amazing if you really look at it."