For over fifty years, this icon of American photography explored North America by every means of locomotion. The Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson celebrates his work in a retrospective of over a hundred legendary images.
Stephen Shore is today one of the greatest repositories of twentieth-century American imagery. The 76-year-old has turned the banality of everyday life into meaningful beauty, and color into an art form in its own right, alongside Joel Meyerowitz and
William Eggleston. He began photography at the age of 9. At 14, he sold three of his first images to Edward Steichen, then director of MoMA's photography department. At 16, he came into close contact with Andy Warhol and his Factory, whom he photographed in a series
published in a book. At 24, he became the first living photographer to have an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art since Alfred Stieglitz, photographer, gallery owner and husband of Georgia O'Keeffe. And the rest is history.
ON THE ROAD
Over more than fifty years, this New York native has created a body of work in which travel, itinerancy and mobility play a central role. A legend carried on by other legends, such as Walker Evans, his master, but also Robert Frank, Jack Kerouac and Bobby Troup, who each in their own way redrew the contours and attractions of a changing America, as pure surveyors of the byways. "On a road trip, I'm an explorer traveling in a bubble of familiarity: my car. I have the freedom to travel in any direction I want for as long as I want. Every journey is an adventure. Our country was made for long journeys," he points out in one of his lyrics, The Road Trip. This is demonstrated by the Fondation Cartier-Bresson's retrospective "Véhiculaire & Vernaculaire" and the accompanying book (ed. Atelier EXB), featuring some 100 photographs taken between 1969 and 2021.
BETWEEN RAIL, PLANE AND DRONE
The exhibition features his most emblematic works. Starting with his black-and-white snapshots taken from the window of his car during a trip to Los Angeles. And of course, his road trips across the United States, which gave rise to his flagship series American Surfaces and Uncommon Places. Here, Stephen Shore creates a veritable photographic diary, somewhere between a snapshot and
a scrapbook, in which everything done during the trip is recorded. The exhibition then extends the scope of his approach to the passage of the 21st century. The photographer goes beyond the confines of the four-wheeler to travel by train and plane, before exploring still other views from a camera-equipped drone. Entitled Topographies, this new series, presented for the first time in Europe,
continues to capture the transformations of the American landscape.
VEHICULAR AND VERNACULAR
It is through this vehicular form that Stephen Shore transcends the notion of the vernacular, "that culture of the useful, the local and the popular so typical of the United States", as Clément Chéroux, curator and director of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, puts it. "The various means of locomotion used by the photographer enabled him to multiply the opportunities for confrontation as much as the points of view on this Americanity", he explains. In 1976, Stephen Shore also took part in two major exhibitions: "New Topographics", at the George Eastman House in Rochester, with eight photographers who redefined the American approach to landscape, and "Signs of Life" at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, where he photographed different types of architecture between Los Angeles and New York. Here, a fragment of the latter exhibition is reconstructed for the occasion. So, as usual with Stephen Shore, the journey, "as important as the destination", remains the perfect pretext "for experimenting and constructing a singular photographic work".
"STEPHEN SHORE, VÉHICULAIRE & VERNACULAIRE"
FONDATION HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON
79, RUE DES ARCHIVES, PARIS 3E
UNTIL SEPTEMBER 15, 2024
HENRICARTIERBRESSON.ORG
STEPHEN SHORE, VÉHICULAIRE & VERNACULAIRE
BY STEPHEN SHORE AND CLÉMENT CHÉROUX
ÉDITIONS ATELIER EXB, JUNE 2024
