Stephen Shore: Redefining what a landscape IS and what it DOES

Stephen Shore is an American photographer who creates uniquely deadpan interpretations of social, cultural and physical landscapes (mostly of the United States). As part of a photographic collective called The New Topographics, he, amongst others, focused most of his image-taking efforts into producing images that find beauty, whilst casting a critical eye, over the banal, the decaying urban America. 

Stephen Shore, El Paso Street, El Paso, Texas, 1975

His images are predominantly urban landscapes. They "distill the profoundly ordinary, the daily moments and forsaken sights that compromise much of the backdrop of American life" (Ratner, M., Oct 2005 Stephen Shore, Frieze Magazine). www.frieze.com/issue/review/stephen_shore1/   

So why? Why take photos of the seemingly inane, the unattractive streets and sidewalks of suburban America? And what made his images remarkable?

Stephen Shore, La Brea Avenue and Beverley Boulevard, 1975

Shore leans heavily towards exploring visual structure. Of the above image, taken in Los Angeles in 1971, Shore said: "I was drawn to this scene because… they were questions about how the world I wanted to photograph could translate into an image. They were, essentially, questions about structure…Photographers have to impose order, bring structure to what they photograph… A painter starts with a blank canvas. Every mark he or she makes adds complexity. A photographer, on the other hand, starts with the whole world." www.stephenshore.net/writing


His images capture a banal, almost initially morose, feeling in their approach to suburban America, but he overlaps layers of structure and meaning – his pictures are not merely contemporary and documentary, they "maintain an air of harmonious repose more common to ancient idylls than modern urban life. The quietude is analogous to Shore’s attitude toward his subject – one of pleasurable reflection rather than judgment. He finds moments of exquisite delectation while becalmed amidst ordinarily negligible surroundings." (Maria Morris, The Museum of Modern Art, Photographs by Stephen Shore)