Originally published by Aperture in 1982 and long out-of-print, Shore?s now legendary book Uncommon Places has influenced a generation of photographers. Uncommon Places: The Complete Works is described by Shore as ?the photographic equivalent of a director?s cut,? presenting an expanded, unprecedented collection of work from the original series, including over sixty photographs that have never-before-been published?many never exhibited. In addition to Shore?s signature landscapes, this new survey reveals equally remarkable portraits and interiors. A substantial essay by noted critic and curator Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen and a conversation with the artist by fiction writer Lynne Tillman each explore Shore?s working processes and provide a new critical context for his work as they elucidate his roots in the Pop and conceptual art movements of the late sixties and early seventies. Each text is lushly illustrated with reproductions from Shore?s earlier series American Surfaces and Amarillo: Tall in Texas, and with a series of never-before-published pages from Shore?s personal diary that he kept while on the road in which he meticulously jots down every detail from what he ate or watched on television, to the subject of each negative he exposed on that particular day. The centerpiece of the book is, of course, the extensive plate section of images from the series Uncommon Places, comprised of photographs taken by Shore during a series of road trips he made across North America from 1973?1979 to explore and document the vernacular landscape and America?s changing culture. Like Robert Frank and Walker Evans before him?Shore discovered a previously unarticulated vision of American life via highway and camera. One of the first fine art photographers to pioneer color photography, Shore used a large format camera for the project in order to capture with surgeon like precision every minute detail he saw in his camera?s viewfinder. The viewer of a Shore photograph is seduced by the colors, the density of information shown and by the everyday familiarity of the locations. Shore?s travels took him to primarily small to medium size towns in over a dozen states, including Texas, Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, California, New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Also included here is a stunning series of portraits he made along the way, of which only a few were included in the original publication. Illuminating and comprehensive, Uncommon Places: The Complete Works provides a timely opportunity to reexamine the diverse implications of Shore?s seminal project and offers a fundamental primer for the last thirty years of large-format photography.
Aperture?a not-for-profit foundation dedicated to advancing photography in all its forms?was founded in 1952 by six gifted individuals: photographers Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Barbara Morgan, and Minor White; historian Beaumont Newhall; and writer/curator Nancy Newhall. With scant resources, these visionary artists created a new periodical, Aperture magazine, to serve photographers and photography enthusiasts worldwide. As the medium flourished, so too did Aperture Foundation, expanding to include the subsequent publication of books (over four hundred to date); limited-edition photographs and portfolios; artist lectures and symposia; and a traveling exhibitions program that since its inception has presented over one hundred exhibitions at major museums and cultural institutions throughout the United States and abroad.
