Lothar Baumgarten – Interstate 40 crossing, […]

The fate of indigenous American peoples is the subtle focus of the Carbon-series from 1989. For four months, Lothar Baumgarten travelled through the United States to document a photographic essay on the pioneering work during the colonization of the country. Signal installations, steel bridges and train tracks, references to industrial success, cut through the vast landscapes, the living spaces of other humans. The photographs illustrate the encounter of two cultures with entirely different goals and ideas of life. Baumgarten’s titles perpetuate the private companies that exploited the “newly discovered” habitat. 

Thirty years later, the photographs have not lost their topicality. On the contrary: The trauma of entire peoples in North America also stands for other places where ruthless progress is sometimes only just beginning.

AF