Tract House #15 1971

Lewis Baltz made this gelatin silver print, Tract House #15, sometime in the late twentieth century. Look at the gradations of gray, a monochrome palette revealing the subtle shifts in texture and light. Think of photography, like painting, as a process of layering, each pass of the lens building up density and depth. The texture of the stucco is so tactile; you can almost feel the grit under your fingers. The gray flattens everything into a kind of visual democracy, where the house, the sky, and the scrubby ground all get equal attention. Notice how the chimney becomes a kind of formal anchor, a vertical counterpoint to the horizontal spread of the building. It’s funny how the windows seem almost like eyes peering out, giving the building a strange kind of personality, as if these houses, all in a row, have thoughts. Baltz’s exploration of suburban landscapes reminds me of Ed Ruscha’s deadpan documentation of LA architecture. Both artists share a fascination with the mundane, finding beauty in the banal. Like all good art, the meaning is not fixed. It’s up for grabs.