Assignment 4 | Leonard Scott Landscape

This Assignment is to write a critical essay on a subject encountered so far during this course. I have chosen New Topographics and the influence of the New Topographics group on Landscape Photography.

The New Topographic group changed the way in which the landscape was photographed and viewed by the use of minimalism and breaking away from the scenic view of western art and incorporating expressionist and conceptual art ideologies as well as environmental issues and messages.

The concept of the untamed sublime landscape of the American West was hatched long before Carlton Watkins and Timothy O’Sullivan photographed “pristine” landscapes during their Journeys with the US Geological Survey. Painters such as Asher B. Durand and William James Stillman painted sublime wildernesses such as Katterskill Clove, 1866, June Shower, 1854 and Study of Upper Saranac Lake, 1854.

Asher B. Durand, Kaaterskill Clove, 1866

Asher B. Durand, June Shower, 1854

William James Stillman, Study of Upper Saranac Lake, 1854

This idea of an unspoiled wilderness was reinforced by Ansel Adams with images such as Dunes, Oceano, California, c.1963

Ansel Adams, Dunes, Oceano, California, 1963

The images produced by the New Topographics group, however, flew in the face of that idea to challenge the myth of the American Dream and the untouched landscape.

The New Topographics group, made up of photographers such as Lewis Baltz, Hilla and Bernd Becher, and Robert Adams, challenged the ideology of Lady Liberty and the Manifest Destiny, these photographers, possibly influenced by the themes of Alienation, loss and the Superficiality of Society in J.D Salinger’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’, wanted to show that in post WWII America, Manifest Destiny had thrown off her Red handkerchief headscarf, dropped her blue boiler suit and joined the naked “Free” generation of peace, love, and LSD. The failure of American might in Vietnam was reflected in the failure of the American dream. The expansion of society into the open areas of the states had resulted in literally castles built on sand, which was the result of the bust following the post-WWII boom.

The New Topographics group explored the concepts of the New America, one where the failure of the dream had to be accepted and that identity is created not from one’s uniqueness but from one’s connection to others through commonality.

While Robert Adams photographed the tract houses sitting alone in the desert, the houses waiting for some form of further development to be built around them, he showed the finality of a ‘man created landscape’ without condemning those who had tried to build on these ‘new’ frontiers.

Robert Adams, Frame for a Tract House, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1969

By selecting these scenes Adams incorporated the view of a stagnant movement; the second grand mass movement of people from the East Coast through to the undeveloped lands of the Midwest, Arizona, and Utah has run out of money and steam, leaving the front runners to watch as the land slowly reclaimed what they had tried to build their future on.

Lewis Blatz reformulated the Film and Television view of the Wild West frontier town with ‘Park City’. Here instead of tract housing rotting in a desert, Baltz captured the slow march of the building of a Prime holiday Resort amongst the dry and snow-capped hills of Utah; Only by looking at the quality of the buildings can you see that they are going up rather than coming down. Baltz showed that here the boom generation had seen a landscape that was profit ready for development and change.

Lewis Baltz, Park City #61, 1980

Between Adams and Baltz the two faces of America are portrayed, rich and poor, boom and bust. Both reflecting on human control on the environment and the power of money within the continuing American dream, by avoiding any ideas of romanticism and artistic beauty they were able to document unemotionally the way in which man has come to alter nature.

Hilla and Bernd Becher who are most well-known for ‘Pitheads, 1974’ took a different approach with their images,

Pitheads 1974 by Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher 1931-2007, 1934-2015

Pitheads 1974 Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher 1931-2007, 1934-2015 Purchased 1974

excluding people from their industrial collections, their collected images demonstrated a Linnaean approach to their subjects; Categorising them and by showing these selections together, creating a taxonomy of industrial architecture, which addressed the idea of form and function and how the industrial landscape was formed through man-made developments.

Certainly, in the case of the Becher’s, the landscapes challenged the perceived aesthetics of Landscape photography. Their methods were based on a fixed set of rules, image format, uniform light, uniform distance, consistent composition and consistent restriction to the monochromatic range, as set by Ansel Adams, equates to precise uniformity of the image. By staying firmly within the boundaries of Topography, the Becher’s have avoided introducing other factors such as historical values or set location boundaries. In examining the images, we can see that the Becher’s have returned their subjects to a similar form of art, that of the icon. Like the Becher’s images, religious icons were simple small portraits which were hung together within churches. Like the Becher’s pitheads, these religious icons had a constant set of guiding rules when they were painted. Becher’s subjects grouped together have a flow as the eye moves from one subject to another, consciously looking for differences in the beginning before the eye resets and we see the overlooked beauty in the formation of the subjects. But unlike the religious icons, Hilla and Bernd Becher’s images such as Loomis Coal Breaker, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, USA (1974) show no hope, only despair as the subject lies doomed, defunct and dying.

bernd-hilla-becher pensilvannia coal breaker

Loomis Coal Breaker, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, USA (1974)

The New Topographics group concentrated on the American West, the advertised land of the empty country, roamed by cattle and the Marlboro Man, a country where at the time of the mass development of the land, the road trip had become commonplace. Idealised by Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider and Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ the road trip became a marker between the last of the frontier land exploration and the foreshadowing reality of the recession and the collapse of the subprime mortgage bubble. This landscape of motels, fuelling stations, garages and small towns, scattered across the grasslands and deserts were photographed by John Schott, and Frank Gohlke. Schott in is work ‘Route 66 Hotels’ shows a landscape filled with Whitewashed Adobe buildings, neon signs, and empty plastic chairs. Concrete tepees with high thin Tv aerials and air conditioners bolted to the sides, sit clustered together, hideaways from the sun and the open road.

Frank Gohlke New Topographics #121 Untitled. 1973

John Schott New Topographics #121 Untitled. 1973

Schott photographs these buildings so that they can be identified and cataloged as part of a taxonomic group of roadside life. His dispassionate framing of the subject so that it can be viewed almost as if one was passing them in a car, possibly tired from the journey at ready to pick the next random stop.

Strangely, the scenes produced by Schott and Gohlke would reappear as an influence on others; for example, in the design, structure, layout, and buildings of the fictional town of Radiator Springs in the Disney Movie ‘Cars’. Instead of Schott’s concrete Tepees, there is instead a row of concrete traffic cones.

Radiator Springs, Still from Disney’s Animated Movie ‘Cars’

Gohlke in his series Grain Elevators, gave differing views of the structures, unlike the Bechers, Gohlke took his photographs from different distances and angles, capturing the structures in a static state. For the majority there no people in Gohlke’s images, shadows fall across vehicles and ground alike. Only in ‘Grain Elevators being repaired, Minneapolis 1974’ do we have people,

Frank Gohlke Grain-elevator-under-repair-Minneapolis-MN-1974

but the figures are tiny against the vast structure, they are the faceless workers, only there to restore the grain elevator to its former state. His photo ‘Landscape St. Paul 1974’ predicts the rise of the out of town shopping mall.

Frank Gohlke Landscape St Paul Minnesota 1974

Large scale carparks, dotted with street lights dominating the landscape. Gohlke also photographed the idea that the landscape was produced by the movement of the tectonic plates, a landscape undergoing a change which if man made could only be done by a large scale nuclear weapon in series Mount St Helens. Gohlke photographed the large scale destruction visited upon the landscape by the eruption.

Frank Gohlke Aerial View Logs and debris in south end of Spirit Lake 4 or 5 miles N of Mt St Helens Washington, 1981

This later work by Gohlke ties into one of the main influences to come out of the New Topographics group, which is the impact of man-made change to the environment and the issues being caused as a result of climate change. Change which has happened mainly due to mass consumerism in the West but also due to the changes in farming techniques and the expanding change of land use for housing due to population growth.

From these works, it can be seen that the New Topographics groups were amongst the first to use art as a tool for political agitation. The groups’ work can also be seen as using Landscape photography to perform cultural criticism, examining the dichotomy of the need for more land whilst trying to save the environment.

The New Topographics group turned landscape photography and landscape art on its head; by focussing on what most people passed by, ignored or just did not examine, they changed the perspective on looking at the landscape as well as how the landscape is viewed as a tool and a source.

1551/2000 Words.

1924 words

References

John’s Columbia Blog. 2019. Introduction to and Re-Reading the New Topographics. | John’s Columbia Blog. [ONLINE] Available at: https://johnlusisphoto.wordpress.com/2013/11/25/introduction-to-and-re-reading-the-new-topographics/. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Dennis, K., 2015. Eclipsing Aestheticism: Western Landscape Photography After Ansel Adams. Expressions of Environment in Euroamerican Culture / Ancient Bodies in Nineteenth Century British Literature and Culture, [Online]. November, 1-23. Available at: https://journals.openedition.org/miranda/6920 [Accessed 19 April 2019].

X-TRA. 2019. X-TRA. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.x-traonline.org/article/new-topographics-photographs-of-a-man-altered-landscape. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Higbee, L., 2013. New Topographics and Generic Transformation in Landscape Photography of the 1970s. Dissertation for MA. Florida, USA: Florida State University.

Tate. 2019. New topographics – Art Term | Tate. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/n/new-topographics. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

ScherpteDiepte. 2019. ScherpteDiepte. [ONLINE] Available at: http://journal.scherptediepte.eu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=scherpte;rgn=main;view=text;idno=m0701a01. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

http://www.metmuseum.org. 2019. No page title. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dura/hd_dura.htm. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Smithsonian American Art Museum. 2019. Asher B. Durand | Smithsonian American Art Museum. [ONLINE] Available at: https://americanart.si.edu/artist/asher-b-durand-1364. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Smithsonian American Art Museum. 2019. William James Stillman | Smithsonian American Art Museum. [ONLINE] Available at: https://americanart.si.edu/artist/william-james-stillman-6227. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Tate. 2019. ‘Gas Tanks’, Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher, 1965-2009 | Tate. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bernd-becher-and-hilla-becher-gas-tanks-p81237. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Fosco Lucarelli. 2019. Absence of Style: Lewis Baltz and the New Topographics – SOCKS. [ONLINE] Available at: http://socks-studio.com/2015/10/16/absence-of-style-lewis-baltz-and-the-new-topographics/. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

AMERICAN SUBURB X. 2019. New Topographics: “Landscape and the West – Irony and Critique in New Topographic Photography” (2005) – AMERICAN SUBURB X. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.americansuburbx.com/2012/05/new-topographics-landscape-and-the-west-irony-and-critique-in-new-topographic-photography-2005.html. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Frieze. 2019. New Topographics | Frieze. [ONLINE] Available at: https://frieze.com/article/new-topographics. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

John Schott | Photography. 2019. John Schott | Photography | Additional “Route 66 Motels” Photographs . [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.johnschottphotography.com/p905773474/h3544dda9#h3b3132fa. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Frank Gohlke – Artists – Howard Greenberg Gallery. 2019. Frank Gohlke – Artists – Howard Greenberg Gallery. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.howardgreenberg.com/artists/frank-gohlke/featured-works?view=slider#7. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Places Journal. 2019. Frank Gohlke: Thoughts on Landscape. [ONLINE] Available at: https://placesjournal.org/article/frank-gohlke-thoughts-on-landscape/?cn-reloaded=1. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Ignacio Villarreal. 2019. Accommodating Nature: The Photographs of Frank Gohlke Opens. [ONLINE] Available at: http://artdaily.com/news/25582/Accommodating-Nature–The-Photographs-of-Frank-Gohlke-Opens#.XOu-24hKiUk. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

http://www.mocp.org/detail.php?type=related&kv=1294&t=objects

Museum of Contemporary Photography. 2019. Museum of Contemporary Photography. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.mocp.org/detail.php?type=related&kv=1294&t=objects. [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Cars, 2006. [DVD] John Alan Lasseter, United States of America: Pixar Animation Studios.

The following is a full extract from my initial attempt to write the Assignment. I found in the end that I was getting too bogged down in the subject and that it was turning out to be less of a critical essay and more of a narrative essay. I then changed the subject idea after coming to the conclusion that I was just getting nowhere. Subsequent Assignment 4 submission here

Assignment 4 Memory of a Photograph.

Write a critical essay based on one of the subjects so far encountered.

For me, the memory of a photograph exercise arrived at a synchronous point of time as I had just been handed an A4 folder full of pieces and paper and photographs which were taken during holidays as a child.

For me, this was a return to a landscape from childhood, a holiday of confusing and conflicting images. The three main memories of the holiday were chickenpox, tanks and freezing on Hadrian’s wall. Were these memories supported by a set of as yet unseen photographs?

The photographs are all Polaroid, a gift from my father to my mother, and an exciting new way of seeing images to us. No longer did we have to wait until we returned from holidays to review our experiences, these could be viewed instantly as long as you waited the requisite one minute while fanning the air with the print. I never really did see my father hold a camera, he was rarely behind the lens, rather he stood off to one side calling guidance, preferring to gaffer and not be seen.

My memories of Warcop are of a small village, reminiscent of C.Henry Warrens idea of the typical British village, whitewashed cottages with all roads leading to the village green where benches sit and towering behind the village church with its wooden lychgate. Small shops selling fresh fruit and local vegetables, with the general hardware store somewhere in the middle of a row. A review of google maps shows me a completely different landscape, a small group of houses and a parish hall. What is it I remember; what landscape is etched on my mind?

The small blue shutter cottage looks at me out of a photograph, I faintly remember the building, sitting on the edge of a lane; which lead off into the Warcop Training grounds in the Dales, where the Army demonstrated their firepower, technical superiority and might by having Chieftan tanks hurl high explosives at shattered targets. The boom from the tank’s cannons rattling the large window where we sat at eat. Usually, these practices were undertaken in the morning and we would later walk up those hills when it was safe, clambering over punctured metal and tossed earth. A treeless flat landscape filled with grass, mud, bog torn up by tank tracks and tires. I never considered until today the possible dangers of climbing on these targets; had the army been using Depleted Uranium rounds, what considerations were taken to the environment and to any visitors to the land? All I can remember is the landscape in every direction was MOD land and that when the red flag was up, the whole landscape was forbidden and dangerous, I could only walk it accompanied.

The photographs continue to tumble out, they were once stuck by a single sellotape strip to gridded paper, the adhesion on the tape has like some of my holiday memories long gone. Almost certainly the collection that I have is selective, no doubt some are lost having fallen from the collection or mixed into another pile yet undiscovered. These memories show a forgotten landscape, a waterfall, a riverside path worn through dry brown grass, a castle, the handwritten notes beside the spaces tell me of things I cannot remember, I appear to be there in the image, but I cannot recall the place.

I can recall the long drive through the dales, where my father driving in the wrong direction tried to head for Durham, we ended up sitting roadside at a stream, I recall we did that a lot, during spring weekends and damp autumns. Always a stream bank and always the car tiled slightly off-road, a tartan rug laid on the grass.

I recall the wind and the scratchy woolen jumper my mother had knitted and presented to me as a Christmas present. Chickenpox itch and woolen scratches as I stood directionless on Harridans wall. I could not tell why side of this historic barrier I was on, once side grass, then a stone strip and then a small cliff dropping thirty or forty feet. To my ten-year-old mind, I somehow could not imagine the immense diving barrier these stones represented. I stared out over farmland to distant hills, the wind driving through me. To me Hadrian’s wall was just like the border, an invisible line so easy to cross and pass. I had never considered the work and power required to divide a landscape and have the power to say “this is mine. Not yours”

There are more empty spaces than there are polaroid’s, what am I missing, what parts of the holiday can I not remember, what did I see that I cannot recall. I have no postcards, no other photographs, only vague memories. What exists beyond what I have forgotten, where are the owners? I have a faint recollection, but not enough. I have a memory of sitting in a taxi drivers café under a large soot covered viaduct, the post-industrial landscape of buildings beginning their fall from grace into dereliction, was this the same holiday or another time. I cannot trust what I remember to fully create the land I holidayed in. I feel the sadness at the loss of industry in that town as we were undergoing that at home, I still do feel sad, looking up at the grand viaduct knowing that people would pass over this town and it would fall further into disrepair.

Another photo represents abbey ruins. What was their importance, obviously owned by heritage or church? Then I remember, like Scotland, large parts of the landscape are in private ownership. Thirty percent of the land has lain in the hands of the gentry of generations. High amongst that ownership is the Duke of Buccleuch. The church of England has just point five percent ownership. Where during these times on holidays did, we set foot on land which was not owned by someone and which was free and unclaimed.

Perhaps, some of the memories are idealistic, forged from the media of the time, television showed the pastoral landscapes of “Last of the Summer Wine” and “All creatures great and small”, some harking back to a gentler pre-war time of Britain and the other a village out of time, untouched by poverty, pollution or punk. Certainly, both were used to present the picture of a calm countryside and mill towns much like Constable with the Hay Wain, both hiding from the reality of poverty, rioting, and deprivation.

Even now the paintings of the Yorkshire Dales are Turneresque, Paul Butterworth in Yorkshire Dales produces a version of the Dales where it is green hills, fields separated by stone dikes glowing under a golden sun, or it is as in Simon Anthony Wilsons Scorched Moor a foggy, barren scape of yellow gorse under grey-blue smoke and mist. Towns and villages and people are missing, a return to the people less landscapes of Georgian times, again the landscape painting is there as a power symbol. Art as a possession and the power of the view.

Much like the power of selection shown by my mother who produced the photographs and my own power of selection by what memories I can and cannot recall, whether these memories are real or stitched together from memories of a selection of TV programmes.

1218 words/2000

References

https://www.saatchiart.com/paintings/yorkshire-dales/feature?hitsPerPage=100

http://turner.yorkshire.com/

Leonard Scott Landscape

Learning Log of OCA Level 2 Photography Course – Landscape.

Tag Archives: Assignment 4

Assignment 4 – New Topographics

References

Assignment 4 First Attempt – Memory of a Photograph