Rule without Exception / Only Exceptions

This progressive book object combines two volumes and covers the sweep and depth of Lewis Baltz’s influential oeuvre. Rule Without Exception is a re-issue of Baltz’s award-winning mid-career retrospective book which accompanied a travelling exhibition of the same name in 1991. The book surveys Baltz’s work from “The Prototype Works” of 1967 through to “Sites of Technology” of 1991, showing the range of his images of industrialised landscapes and technological sites. Each section of the book is accompanied by installation views as well as texts by distinguished writers, some newly commissioned for this edition. Only Exceptions is a new book chronicling Baltz’s work – now usually site-generated commissioned works – from 1992 to the present and is published on the occasion of an exhibition organized by the Kunstmuseum, Bonn. Only Exceptions includes Baltz’s work in California, Leipzig’s “Black Triangle”, Reggio Emilia, Groningen, Rome, Venice, and two projects with Jean Nouvel in France and Italy. Born in 1945 in Newport Beach, California, Lewis Baltz is a defining photographer of the last half-century. After studying at the San Francisco Art Institute and Claremont Graduate School, Baltz came to prominence with the New Topographics movement of the 1970s. His awards include a Guggenheim fellowship and the Charles Pratt Memorial Award, and his work is held in most major museum collections. Baltz’s books with Steidl include 89–91, Sites of Technology (2007), WORKS (2010), The Prototype Works (2011) and Candlestick Point (2011). Exhibitions: Kunstmuseum, Bonn, 10 May to 2 September 2012; Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover, 14 September to 4 November 2012 Lewis Baltz