Park City 98 1979

Curator: Looking at this photograph by Lewis Baltz, “Park City 98” from 1979, one gets the feeling it is a double portrait of almost identical, yet unsettlingly vacant, closets. Editor: My immediate impression is emptiness. It's stark, clinical, almost brutally minimalist, evoking a sense of cold abandonment. It almost hurts my eyes. Curator: Exactly, Baltz’s series, which this belongs to, investigates the rapid urban development near Park City, Utah in the late '70s. We see how architectural spaces become emptied out by late capitalism. Editor: So these aren't just any old closets, but rather signifiers of a failed promise, maybe? I see now it’s as though he's photographed the void left behind. He always finds a kind of beauty or maybe an appeal in the stark realism, right? Curator: His eye seeks geometric forms amidst mundane landscapes. The uniformity speaks of mass-produced housing, where individuality is paradoxically erased. Notice the cold detachment, yet somehow still... meditative. Editor: Absolutely meditative in its monotony, which is such a trick that photographers like Baltz play on us. Are we bored or deeply considering the world as we've shaped it? Curator: What resonates with me most is how Baltz holds up a mirror, revealing the unsettling realities masked beneath idealized notions of progress. Editor: Indeed. It leaves you contemplating the societal structures hidden in plain sight. I thought I would be bored but I am fascinated. Curator: A stark reminder that often, it is within the most commonplace scenes that we can grasp a deep sense of ourselves and how we engage the world around us. Editor: Absolutely, there is something to be said for the profound simplicity of images like this. We both initially agreed the image evoked vacancy, however there are so many potential places this sentiment takes our thoughts.