For "New Topographics", William Jenkins selected eight then-young American photographers:
Robert Adams,
Lewis Baltz,
Joe Deal,
Frank Gohlke,
Nicholas Nixon,
John Schott,
Stephen Shore, and
Henry Wessel, Jr. He also invited the German couple,
Bernd and Hilla Becher, who were teaching at the
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Germany. Since the late 1950s the Bechers had been photographing various obsolete structures, mainly post-industrial carcasses or carcasses-to-be, in Europe and America. They first exhibited them in series, as "typologies", often shown in grids, under the title of "Anonymous Sculptures." They were soon adopted by the
conceptual art movement. Each photographer in the New Topographics exhibition was represented by ten prints. All but Stephen Shore worked in black and white. The prints were in a format except for Joe Deal (32 cm × 32 cm), Gohlke (24 cm × 24 cm – close to 8 in × 10 in though obviously square rather than rectangular), and the Bechers with typical European (for the time) 30 cm × 40 cm prints. In his introduction to the catalogue, Jenkins defined the common denominator of the show as "a problem of style:" "stylistic anonymity", an alleged absence of style. Jenkins mentioned
Edward Ruscha's work, especially the numerous artist books (
26 Gasoline Stations (1962),
Various Small Fires (1964),
34 Parking Lots (1967), etc.) that he
self-published in the 1960s as one of the inspirations for the exhibition and the photographers it features (except for the Bechers). Technically, half the photographers were working with large format
view cameras; those who were not were using either square
medium format (Deal, Gohlke), or in the case of Baltz,
35 mm Technical Pan, a
slow and high-definition
Kodak film that the photographer printed on 8 in × 10 in paper. Only Baltz and Wessel were using regular 35 mm
cameras and film. A notable element of the show was that the artists were, or would be, linked with higher education as students, professors, or both—a change from the preceding generations. The shift from craft or self-teaching to academia had somewhat been started by photographers such as
Ansel Adams and
Minor White, but the new generation was turning away from the approach of these forebears. This was illustrated by the subject matter that the New Topographics chose as well as their commitment to casting a somewhat ironic or critical eye on what American society had become. They all depicted urban or suburban realities under changes in an allegedly detached approach. In most cases, they gradually revealed themselves as coming from rather critical vantage points, especially Robert Adams, Baltz, and Deal. The exhibition was recreated in various locations: in 1981, six years after its original presentation, it was shown in reduced form at the
Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, UK, under the auspices of
Paul Graham and
Jem Southam. A large scale presentation of the exhibition was organized in 2009 at the
Center for Creative Photography in Tucson. "New Topographics" began an international tour in 2009, with stagings at the
George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, and the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 2011 the exhibition was on view at the
Nederlands Fotomuseum in
Rotterdam, Netherlands, and later at the
Bilbao Fine Arts Museum in Spain. Although the eight photographers included in the original exhibition make up the core of the
New Topographics school, photographers such as
Laurie Brown have been tied to the school. ==References==