New Topographics

The term New Topographics goes back to an exhibition held in New York in 1975 and describes an American trend in photography that significantly influenced later styles, such as the Düsseldorf Photo School. The photographic artists represented in the exhibition found inspiration in man-made, stark subjects, such as parking lots, suburban housing developments, factories, or warehouses, shown with a similar respectable austerity as early photographers documented the natural landscape. The images were united by a trivial aesthetic that finds beauty in the banal and marks a turning point in the history of photography.