STEPHEN SHORE – SOMETHING + NOTHING
2013-11-24Taking its title from composer and philosopher John Cage’s Lecture on Something and Lecture on Nothing, a reference to the artist’s search for beauty in the everyday, the exhibition will celebrate a career that spans over four decades, bringing together 65 photographs, including vintage works from the artist’s seminal series American Surfaces (1972-3) and Uncommon Places (1973-79), displayed for the first time alongside works from the recent series Abu Dhabi (2009), Israel (2010) and the never before exhibited series Ukraine (2012).
Stephen Shore’s photographs of ordinary America have had an extraordinary impact on photography as an artistic practice. The artist set the standard for colour photography of the social landscape in his best known bodies of work American Surfaces and Uncommon Places, pioneering two of the most important photographic idioms of the past forty years; the diaristic snapshot and the monumentalised landscape. Shore’s art of pictorial composition and handling of colour, light and shadow also spurred interest in colour photography and for the first time gave it an unchallengeable status as a genuine artistic medium. In 1972 Shore embarked on his first road trip around America, focusing his camera on the immense diversity of the suburban landscape; anonymous intersections, residential architecture, uniform drive-by diners, generic motel rooms and monotonous gas stations.
Opposite – Abu Dhabi, 2009
Exhibition runs through to January 11th, 2014
Sprüth Magers London
7A Grafton Street
London
W1S 4EJ
