The Quiet Power of Desolation Lewis Baltz (1945-2014) stands as a cornerstone of the New Topographics movement, an artistic reaction to landscape painting’s romanticized depictions of nature in the wake of Abstract Expressionism. Rather than celebrating vistas and grandeur, Baltz confronted the pervasive emptiness of American industrial spaces—office buildings, parking lots, factories—transform im into subjects of profound contempl…