Greg Sept. 16: Is Bruce Myren doing New Topographics?

For Greg’s class on Sept. 16, we’ll be reading, writing and talking about Bruce Myren’s “40th Parallel” project, on view at Gallery Kayafas from Sept. 6 to Oct. 12. Read the essays below, look at photos by Myren and the New Topographics photographers and answer the following questions: Is Myren doing New Topographics style photography? What is New Topographics?

Readings:
= “From Sea To Shining Sea: Bruce Myren's Photo Cross-Section Of U.S.” by Greg Cook, WBUR.org The Artery, 2013.
= Introduction to “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” by William Jenkins, 1975.
= “LACMA traces photography’s New Topographics movement” by Leah Ollman, 2009

Look up photos by Myren and the New Topographics group. Consider the following quotes from the readings:
= Lewis Baltz: “The ideal photographic document would appear to be without author or art.”
= Robert Adams: “Pictures should look like they were easily taken. Otherwise beauty in the world is made to seem elusive and rare, which it is not.”
= John Schott: “This work basically said there’s a new world to be seen, and it deserves to be looked at, whether you see it as despoiling the landscape or simply as a fact.”

Pictured at top: Bruce Myren’s photo at “N 40° 00’ 00” W 104° 00’ 00” Hoyt, Colorado,” 2008.