We have already talked about the art market in general, starting from ancient art to contemporary art given the new economic and social factors that are imploding, putting the entire consumer market into crisis, including that of collectibles or investment goods. It will also be interesting to understand the role of Photography, which is also a witness to stories and events experienced and immortalized. The Cartier Bresson Foundation, with this exhibition and for those who can be in Paris this weekend, offers the opportunity to reflect carefully on the cultural changes that are affecting us.
On view at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson through this week, the exhibition features the photographer’s famous series: Uncommon Places and American Surfaces – alongside lesser-known projects never shown in France. A fragment of the exhibition Signs of Life in which Shore participated in 1976 and is exceptionally recreated for the occasion.
The photographer's latest series, shot using drones, is being exhibited for the first time in Europe
Since the 60s, mobility has been central to Stephen “Shore’s practice.” In 1969, on a trip to Los Angeles with his father, he took photographs from the car window. In the 70s and 80s, he took several road trips across the United States, resulting in his two most famous series: American Surfaces and Unusual Places. As the new millennium began, he resumed photographing from different places of transportation: from car windows, to trains and airplanes. For his most recent project, begun in 2020, he used a drone equipped with a camera to photograph the changes in the American landscape. For over half a century, he has developed a form of “vehicular photography.” The vernacular has been an ever-present interest in North American photography: the culture of the useful, the local and the popular, so typical of the United States. Shore’s work is permeated by multiple aesthetic and cultural issues. The vernacular is one of them. Shore’s mobility allows him to multiply the perspectives and encounters with this “Americanness.”
Born in New York in 1947, Stephen Shore began taking photographs at the age of nine. At the age of fourteen, Edward Steichen purchased three of his photographs for the collections of MoMA. In 1971, he became the first living photographer to have his work exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum by Alfred Stieglitz. Shore was one of eight photographers included in the legendary 1975 New Topographics exhibition at Rochester's George Eastman House, which redefined the American approach to landscape. He is part of the generation that led the recognition of color photography as an art form. Rich, varied, and complex, his work transforms everyday scenes into opportunities for meditation.
Cover image: Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21, 1975, from the series Uncommon Places, 1973-1986 ©Stephen Shore. Courtesy of 303 Gallery, New York and Sprüth Magers
