The project that pushed Stephen Shore away from pop
Edwynn Houk’s show of Uncommon Places prints reminds us of Shore’s switch from America’s surfaces to its depths
If you wanted to pinpoint the moment when photographer Stephen Shore shifted away from his early pop art influences and into a mode more in keeping with fine-art photography, you’d pick his Uncommon Places series.
Many of these carefully considered, large-format landscape shots are taken in rural and small-town America, just like this New York-born photographer’s earlier project, American Surfaces. However, American Surfaces – created between 1972 and 73 - was shot on a dinky Rollei 35 camera, and developed by mass-market labs, more used to processing holiday snaps. Those bright, colourful images skip over the surface of the parochial regions of the US, as the name suggests.
In contrasts, Uncommon Places, shot between 1973 and 1982, takes a far deeper look into these regions. Shore switched his Rollei for a far bulkier large-format camera, which drew a great deal more attention, but also enabled Shore to capture landscapes in far greater detail and depth of field.
Gallery goers can pick out all this exquisite definition in a new show, Stephen Shore: Uncommon Places Vintage Prints, opening at Edwynn Houk gallery in New York on 25 January. Though he’s shooting the same gas stations and neon signs as he featured in his poppy, earlier shots, Uncommon Places draw more from 17th century European artists such as Claude Lorrain than they do from Shore’s good pal, Andy Warhol.
The images still feature commercial signage and chrome car fins, yet Shore has taken the time to contexualise this all, shifting away from America’s surfaces to give us a little more depth.
For more on the creation of this series order a copy of Shore’s Road Trip Journal; for more on Shore’s career more generally order a copy of this book, part of our Contemporary Artists Series.