New topographics

New Topographics is a term introduced by the curator William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers whose predominantly black-and-white prints of the urban and suburban landscape shared a similar, deliberately banal aesthetic. The name comes from the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, held that year in Rochester. Its circle of authors included Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Stephen Shore and others. These photographers abandoned the romantic, sublime depiction of pristine nature in favour of a restrained, almost neutral documentation of human-altered spaces, parking lots, warehouses, tract housing, industrial zones and suburbs. Their cool, dispassionate gaze raised questions about the impact of industrialisation, consumption and development on the environment. New Topographics decisively influenced the later development of landscape and conceptual photography, inspiring a generation of authors worldwide, including those who explore the post-industrial and transformed landscapes that are also relevant to Ukraine.