After Baldus
Projects | Books
After Baldus
2017 |In the winter of 2017, one of the halls of Huis Marseille in Amsterdam was the album After Baldus
with fifty photos of Cary Markerink and Theo Baart.
This project is inspired by the album Le Chemin de Fer du Nord
that Baron de Rothschild gave to Queen Victoria in August 1855 on her arrival in Paris. Victoria traveled on the new rail link between Boulogne-sur-Mer and the French capital. Edouard Baldus photographed - another technical novelty - what Victoria (just) could not see from the train: overpasses she drove over, stations, and cultural heritage in the vicinity of the railway line. This album is counted among the highlights of photography history.
Cary Markerink and Theo Baart were able to browse one of the copies of the album in 2009 (Rothschild had twenty-five made to promote his railway) in the depot of the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. The knowledge that the railroad was still there, that the area industrialized as a result of the arrival of the train, that two world wars and the effects of globalization left their mark on the landscape, was the reason - just like Baldus at the time - to travel freely through the same area and to photograph. One hundred and fifty years later, we also chose the album as a presentation form for the new work.
Travel companion and author of the essay
After Baldus, Travels in a Wounded Landcape
was Alison Nordström, former curator of the photography collection of the George Eastman House.
A special edition (edition 100) by After Baldus with the essay by Alison Nordström and two numbered and signed prints by Markerink and Baart has been published on the occasion of this presentation.
Design
Joost Grootens. [out of stock]
Cary Markerink and Theo Baart received financial support from the Mondriaan Fund.
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