Decoding Baltz's Prototypes

July 2011 - Britt Salvesen, curator and head, Wallis Annenberg Photography Department and prints and drawings department, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In his Prototypes series of photographs, Lewis Baltz represented the built environment of the 1960s and 1970s. He critiqued modernist aspirations while examining commercial realities. In this lecture recorded on June 5, 2011, at the National Gallery of Art, Britt Salvesen examines Baltz's work and several different visual sources available to him, from the Case Study houses as photographed by Julius Shulman to minimalist painting and sculpture, to Ed Ruscha and New Topographics. This lecture was presented in conjunction with the Gallery's exhibition Lewis Baltz: Prototypes/Ronde de Nuit, on view until July 31, 2011.