RETRO

Merriam-Webster : relating to, reviving, or being the styles and especially the fashions of the past : fashionably nostalgic or old-fashioned

The photographs in the series RETRO are similar in content, style and form to photographs made in the earliest days of the medium. The first photograph that didn’t fade in light was an abstracted cultural landscape of a courtyard by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826.

This work is informed by the New Topographics exhibition shown at the George Eastman House in 1975 and remounted in 2009 at the University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography. Nine artists showed photographs of defunct factory buildings, suburban sprawl, industrial parks and vernacular buildings along America's roadways. These photographs revolutionized landscape art by making these vernacular structures acceptable artistic subjects.

Although the photographs of RETRO were shot in many different places around the world, they are unified by a focus on composition, color, form, line and texture. Looking at them, I wonder about the commonality of the built environment across cultures. Is it the way I see the world, or a result of globalization?

www.davidkutz.com/portfolio/retro/