Stephen Shore: Selected Works, 1973-1981

Stephen Shore’s Uncommon Places is indisputably a canonic body of work—a touchstone for those interested in photography and the American landscape. Remarkably, despite having been the focus of numerous shows and books, including the eponymous 1982 Aperture classic (expanded and reissued several times), this series of photographs has yet to be explored in its entirety. Over the past five years, Shore has scanned hundreds of negatives shot between 1973 and 1981. In this volume, Aperture has invited an international group of fifteen photographers, curators, authors, and cultural figures to select ten images apiece from this rarely seen cache of images. Each portfolio offers an idiosyncratic and revealing commentary on why this body of work continues to astound; how it has impacted the work of new generations of photography and the medium at large; and proposes new insight on Shore’s unique vision of America as transmuted in this totemic series.
Texts and image selections by Wes Anderson, Quentin Bajac, David Campany, Paul Graham, Guido Guidi, Takashi Homma, An-My Leê, Michael Lesy, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Francine Prose, Ed Ruscha, Britt Salvesen, Taryn Simon, Thomas Struth, and Lynne Tillman

Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 328
Number of images: 150
Publication date: 2017-05-15
Measurements: 12 x 15 x 1 inches
ISBN: 9781597113885

At age fourteen, Stephen Shore had his work purchased by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art, New York. At seventeen, Shore was a regular at Andy Warhol’s Factory, producing an important photographic document of the scene, and in 1971, at the age of twenty-three, he became the first living photographer since Alfred Stieglitz forty years earlier to have a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has had numerous one-man shows, including those at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; George Eastman House, Rochester; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Jeu de Paume, Paris; and Art Institute of Chicago. He has received two NEA grants and a Guggenheim Foundation grant. Since 1982 he has been director of the photography program at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where he is the Susan Weber Professor in the Arts.
Wes Anderson is an American writer and film director. His movies include Rushmore (1998) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).
Quentin Bajac is the Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
David Campany is a writer, curator, artist, and winner of the 2012 ICP Infinity Award for Writing. He teaches at the University of Westminister, London.
Paul Graham is a British photographer based in New York and has published more than fifteen books including a shimmer of possibility (2007).
Guido Guidi is an Italian photographer and his work has been exhibited internationally including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Takashi Homma is a Japanese photographer and has published numerous books including Takashi Homma: Tokyo (Aperture, 2008).
An-My Lê is a photographer, 2012 MacArthur Foundation Fellow, and professor in the Department of Photography at Bard College, Annandale–on–Hudson, New York.
Michael Lesy is the author of thirteen books, including Wisconsin Death Trip (1973) and teaches narrative nonfiction at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Hans Ulrich Obrist is artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries, London, and has written several books including, Ways of Curating (2014).
Francine Prose is a novelist, essayist, nonfiction writer, and critic who has authored over thirty books, including the New York Times best seller Reading Like a Writer (2006).
Ed Ruscha is an American conceptual artist and a key figure of the Pop art movement of the 1960s.
Britt Salvesen is curator and head of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department and the Prints and Drawings department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Taryn Simon is a multidisciplinary artist working in photography, sculpture, video, and performance. She has held solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Tate Modern, London, among others.
Thomas Struth is a German photographer who trained at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, initially studying painting with Gerhard Richter and, later, photography with Bernd and Hilla Becher.
Lynne Tillman is a novelist, short story writer, and cultural critic. She is the recipient of such awards as a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and an Andy Warhol/Creative Capital Grant in Arts Writing.