Maryland #18 1976

This is a black and white photograph by Lewis Baltz. In this image, the sun creates a ghostly, abstracted pattern on the brick wall of a building; it could be lettering, or some kind of sign. I wonder what Baltz was thinking when he made this photograph? Was he searching for pattern and clarity in this urban landscape? What was it like to be out on the streets taking these pictures? It’s a meditation on surface and depth, on the way that light can transform the most ordinary of things. I'm thinking of Ed Ruscha and his photographs of every building on Sunset Strip. But Baltz is different. For Baltz, it was about the architecture of everyday life; these photographs invite us to look again at the world around us and discover the beauty in unexpected places. Artists keep the world fresh, you know, they show us how to see.