Maryland #12 1976

This is a gelatin silver print, a photograph, made by Lewis Baltz. It's black and white, like a scene from a noir film. I’m curious about this Baltz, what he was thinking, what he wanted to explore by framing an ordinary view in Maryland? I imagine him walking around, searching, stopping, looking, and waiting. The photo becomes an exploration of repetition and industrialisation. Notice how this stream, a natural body, is forced into a man-made canal that runs alongside a building. The row of balconies reminds me of the seriality in Ed Ruscha’s photos of gas stations – a kind of architectural observation that hints at alienation and the lack of personalization in modern landscapes. There's a fence, too, marking territory, a barrier of exclusion. It's about the way we inhabit and change the world around us, and the complex relationship between nature and culture. Ultimately, this is what an artist does. They invite us to look closely and think deeply about the world.