At The / In Der Albertina

At the / In der Albertina documents a two-part exhibition of Lewis Baltz's photographs staged jointly by the Albertina in Vienna and Galerie Thomas Zander in Cologne, built around a recorded conversation between the artist and curator Walter Moser.

Published by Walther König in 2014, the bilingual German and English paperback combines installation views from both venues with a transcribed interview in which Moser, chief curator of the Albertina's photography collection, questions Baltz about the arc of his career. Thirteen color plates supplement the discussion, giving the book the character of a working record of the exhibition rather than a conventional retrospective catalogue.

The interview lets Baltz speak directly about the concerns that ran through five decades of work, from the deadpan surveys of Southern California development that made him a central figure of the New Topographics group to the digitally composed color panoramas of his later career. Published the year of Baltz's death, it captures one of his last extended conversations about that career.