A young boy named Mahito yearning for his mother ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning. A semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death, and creation, in tribute to friendship, from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki.
Susan designed the icons for the Macintosh’s graphical user interface. At the time, the notion of a GUI was revolutionary: just a few years prior to the Mac’s release, people could only interface with a computer through arcane commands written in code. By providing an image-based way to execute computer commands, the Macintosh made computers more intuitive and less intimidating.
As part of the original Mac team, Kare created some of the first digital fonts, the UI for MacPaint and some of the most persistent icons in computing such as the trash can/bin, the save disk and the smiling Mac. Kare added to the UI an element of friendliness and emotion. The icons that she designed were playful and simple enough to be recognisable to users around the world.
I am particularly taken by this image from Kare’s sketchbooks. A beautiful icon. Strikingly simple, yet infinitely complex. An icon that gave birth to thousands if not millions more since.
One of the most significant static images in the history of computer graphics, The Road to Point Reyes is one of Lucasfilm’s most important early projects. Begun in 1983, Rob Cook directed the image and conceived the scene, while Alvy Ray Smith, Loren Carpenter, Tom Porter, Bill Reeves, and David Salesin provided various elements including shading, hidden surface routines, and fractals. The single image, which Smith has described as a ‘one-frame Movie,’ took a month to render, and was eventually displayed at The Computer Museum in Boston.
Every subsequent year feels like it’s worse than the previous year. That’s not the reality of course. It just feels that way. Due to the connected nature of life now (thanks to Twitter and the Trinet). Each of us are saddled with an incalculable weight of the year’s past. We sulk around with so much in our little heads. The inane, the devastating, the memes, the news, the crosswords, the work, the emails, the to-dos, the payments, the notifications and yes — even your parents social status updates from Facebook.
Let’s look over a few things from this past year. I even threw in a couple of things from 2021 I was dying to get caught up with.
TV & Film
There was a lot of content to watch this year. Ever since the pandemic became an endemic, I’ve found myself in theaters more than ever before. Alamo Drafthouse, I love you so ❤️ But the fact remains that streaming is now the de facto means to consume America’s greatest export, film and TV programming. Here’s some of my favorites from this past year (in no particular order or grouping).
There’s so much more I listened to, but I’m my favorite artist I discovered in 2022 is probably Sugar Candy Mountain. If you enjoy Tame Impala, you’re going to love them.
Art
Didn’t see much art this year. But, thankfully I had a friend who came to visit, and had a big list of exhibitions and galleries to see. We hopped around all day seeing art. I’ll need to see more art in 2023, that’s for sure.
The Diane Arbus exhibition at David Zwirner was a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit.
I played a lot of games this year. Or maybe I should say, I played a lot of Modern Warfare II this year. Activision/Blizzard really knocked it out of the park. But there were a few games that really outshined others.
Every year, my goal is to travel somewhere new. This year, I flew to Las Vegas twice. I traveled by Amtrak once in the summer. I hope to do more train trips in the future. It’s a luxurious and chill way to travel.
Las Vegas, Nevada
Saratoga Springs, New York
Great Sacandaga Lake, New York
Fort Worth, Texas
Books
I’m notoriously slow at reading. I have a Kindle that I swear by, but alas — like you, I am a mere mortal and only have so many hours in the day (and night). These books I really enjoyed (a few on this list, I have yet to finish, oops).
A lot happened in 2022. Personally, and globally. Not a lot of good things happened globally honestly. But, personally I feel like I’ve grown a bit. Things are looking up, I’m feeling positive about myself, and where I’m headed.
Looking at my calendar for 2023, I really hope to travel more. Wait, why does that sound familiar? In 2022, I went back to the gym, and rode the ol Peloton quite a bit. Next year, will hopefully be no different. Another goal I have in mind is to speed up my reading habit, because I’m not getting any younger. Looking ahead, feeling’ rad. See y’all around✌️
Kim Jung Gi was only 47 years old. An incredibly talented illustrator. He wielded his brush pen with aplomb, majesty and had an incredible ability to create entire universes out of thin air with the simplest of strokes. I truly believe he was a genius.
Just listen and watch him explain his process. His voice, and commitment to craft and detail is unparalleled:
“[Kim] was a truly phenomenal talent whose pen and brush wizardry captivated and inspired millions of fans around the world,” Lee tweeted. “While he drew some incredible comics, it was his live drawing & his sketchbooks about his life, travels and dreams which spoke to me most. It was downright eerie and spellbinding to see someone with a near photographic memory bring an illustration to life with the style and flair that only Jung Gi could deliver.”
He will be sorely missed. We may never see anyone with his level of mastery ever again. 😢
[…] At the same time, his use of double images and the search for hidden images which characterise his Surrealist experimentation are persistent aspects of his work during the 1940s, when Dalí moved to the United States, where he lived between 1940 and 1948. The dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945 shocked Dalí, who depicted the bombings in many of his landscapes from that year, including Idilio atómico y uránico melancólico (Atomic and Uranic Melancholic Idyll, 1945). In this work, Dalí uses his characteristic figurative style inhabited by soft shapes, represented within a black image whose hollows illuminate another reality outside that which is identified by the aeroplane, explosion and bombs. Beginning in the late 1940s, Dalí’s work moves into a new mystical/nuclear phase, in which he makes a number of works that depict the disintegration of the atom in paintings with religious subject matter.
I’m a big Oneohtrix Point Never fan. Those who know me well, know that. Now, you dear reader, know this about me as well. Welcome to the inner circle.
I was listening to Age Of the other day, and it stuck me that cover art is really something else. It really drew me in to inspect it a bit closer. At first glance, kinda witch-y, kinda cult-y, cool! I dug in further. A quick Google revealed the painting featured on the cover of Age Of is by an artist who’s name is Jim Shaw.
Age Of Cover Art, Oneohtrix Point Never / Warp Records. 2018
I kept digging and found some details of the original painting at artresearchmap.com. Check it out:
Jim Shaw, The Great Whatsit, 2017 acrylic on muslin, 53 x 48 inches, 134.6 x 121.9 cm.Jim Shaw. Installation view, 2017. Metro Pictures, New York.
Some of Jim’s other work is pretty spectacular too. Check out the rest of Jim Shaw’s 2017 exhibition. This fleshy acrylic Head is just a marvel to look at. It’s haunting, disturbing and just glistens. Can’t look away.
Jim Shaw, Head, 2017 Foam, aqua resin, acrylic paint, and synthetic hair with metal base 34 1/2 x 12 x 12 inches, 87.6 x 30.5 x 30.5 cm
Shaw’s ongoing project Oism contains a narrative core and ironically challenges the norms of an artwork. Marking Shaw’s attempt to create a functioning religion, complete with its own history, totems and traditions, Oism is drawn from profound and far-reaching research initiated in the early 1990s into the history of American religious practice and finds inspiration in the messianic cults active in America’s Bible belt. The creation and study of Oism has fuelled a wide range of artworks-cum-artefacts, and includes, amongst others, paintings, photographs, sculptures, collages, posters, films and musical instruments.
Whoo. I’ll say! The Great Whatsit, is certainly effective pursuit of his Oism narrative. The Sunday school hymnal-esque illustration of singing women, bathed in MacBook sunbeams perfectly evokes the Warner Sallman white Jesus brand, with a hint of psychedelic vibes. If you ask me, Shaw hit the nail on the head. American culture on a spectrum. Both searching for a messiah, burning the candle at both ends.
If we want to go deeper, Daniel Lopatin’s string choice for the title track, is a Hapsichord. Apart from snapping so fucking hard as an intro (it’s so good), it really sets the tone as a meditative album from the get-go. I just love the marriage between Oism and 0PN. It’s almost like they’re teasing a sort of recommended set-and-setting for this album. Such a strong connection that can’t be ignored, between these two artists. It’s perfect.
John Baldessari, the influential conceptual artist who helped transform Los Angeles into a global art capital through his witty image-making and decades of teaching there, died on Thursday at his home in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 88. […]
Mr. Baldessari majored in art education at San Diego State College and earned a master’s degree in art there. In short order he took jobs teaching art in junior high school, community college and in an extension program before joining the faculty of University of California, San Diego. He spent one summer teaching teenagers at a camp for juvenile delinquents run by the California Youth Authority; he would joke that he had been hired only because of his size — an imposing 6 foot 7 inches.
His artwork at the time, which he was just beginning to show in Los Angeles galleries, was moving in a more philosophical direction. In 1968, already distancing himself from painting, he reproduced a cover for Artforum magazine featuring a Frank Stella canvas, hiring a sign painter to add a caption below it: “This is not to be looked at.”
Love that. Baldessari was a die-hard Duchamp fan. He leaned into that hilarious realm, art on the edge.
Syd Mead, a designer whose wide-ranging work included envisioning vehicles of the future as well as helping to shape the look of environments in movies like “Blade Runner,” “Tron” and “Aliens,” died on Monday at his home in Pasadena, Calif. He was 86.
His spouse, Roger Servick, said the cause was lymphoma.
Mr. Mead started out in the car business, designing for Ford. By 1970 he had founded his own firm, Syd Mead Inc., and had a wide range of clients, working on architectural interiors and exteriors, restaurants, catalogs and more.
I never knew he began his career at Ford. That’s pretty rad, and it shows. His depictions (or visions?) of vehicles and transport are honest and divine.
Aliens and Blade Runner’s sterile living environments, dank off-world Weyland-Yutani industrial complexes, and the jagged colonial spacescapes gripped my young imagination like a face-hugger. I doubt any of Ridley Scott’s motion pictures would be the same without Mead’s futuristic conceptual input. I mean look at this stuff:
Syd Mead is a very well respected conceptual designer and artist, whose work has influenced multiple generations of sci-fi creators and artists for decades. Tendrils of his work can be found alive and well in the far-away worlds in Hollywood. Obviously his most notable breakout was Blade Runner. Just look anywhere beyond off-world.Moon, Guardians of the Galaxy, the Star Wars franchise, Interstellar and even Pixar films such as WALL·E are a few notable areas where Hollywood really latched onto Mead’s futuristic visions: floating colonies, shiny white airlocks, moody AI, light-cycles, damp neon-lit cities, levitating transports and of course Cyber Trucks.
Donald Judd, was a truly wonderful artist. He was a Texan, a self-proclaimed minimalist (many attribute the term’s ubiquity and elevated definition to his contributions). He was a pioneer in fabrication methods, a prolific furniture designer, and finally an architect.
Judd once purchased a beautiful cast-iron, five-story building at 101 Spring Street, in New York City and it still stands today. It’s where his foundation is currently headquartered in New York. His work, (such as the one pictured below) is transcendent, stimulating ephemeral works. Often bold, they create little spaces and jettison outward from walls or floors with sharpness and arresting hues:
Untitled, 1991. Donald Judd. Photo via David Zwirner.
While Judd died in 1994, tragically from lymphoma (fuck cancer), the Judd Foundation lives on. It is a non-profit, dedicated to preserving and maintaining the life and works of Donald Judd. The foundation also happens to offer scholastic programs and internships to practicing artists. They even have some of Judd’s furniture design fully fabricated for sale. Sales benefit the foundation’s mission and helps keep the lights on. Some pieces in particular are quite striking:
I have nothing but praise for those who study niche topics like these. Toshi Omagari of MonoType, studied typography at Musashino Art University in Tokyo. He’s worked alongside big brands like H&M, and he’s previously contributed to Google Noto, and more notably introduced Tibetan Script support to Google Noto which is spectacular work. He helped resurrect Metro Nova from the dead.
The first book of its kind – a definitive and beautifully designed survey of ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s arcade game pixel typography. Exhaustively researched by author Toshi Omagari (a celebrated typeface designer at Monotype UK) Arcade Game Typography gathers together 250 pixel typefaces, all carefully chosen, extracted, redrawn and categorised by style, and each with an accompanying commentary by Omagari. The title also features 4 illustrated essays on videogame typography theory and practice, documenting the unique advantages and challenges presented to designers of these bold, playful and often quirky alphabets.
A beautifully produced celebration of the eclectic typography featured in hit games such as Super Sprint, Pac-Man, After Burner, Marble Madness, Shinobi, as well as countless lesser-known gems. Unlike print typefaces, pixel type often has colour ‘baked in’ to its characters, so Arcade Game Typography looks unlike any other typography book, fizzing with life and colour.
Love this bit about the original 1978 Space Invaders typography (image below):
The original game, and most of the clones, featured the above typeface, copied from Tank 8 with a minor modification to M.
Photos via Read-Only MemoryLeft page: RoboCop 2 (Data East/1991), Captain America and the Avengers (Data East/1991) Right page: Spider-man: the Video Game (Sega/1991), Xexex (Konami/1991), X-men (Konami/1992)
Firefly is a company focused on delivering highly choreographed drone shows for venues, performances and entertainment. It takes a lot of time and money to get FAA certified these days for piloting a single drone. Programming a fleet of these is really remarkable, and takes some serious planning and skill. If you ask me, this much much cooler than a fireworks show.
[The Mask of Sorrow] is a monument perched on a hill above Magadan, Russia, commemorating the many prisoners who suffered and died in the Gulag prison camps in the Kolyma region of the Soviet Union during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. […]
It consists of a large concrete statue of a face, with tears coming from the left eye in the form of small masks. The right eye is in the form of a barred window. The back side portrays a weeping young woman and a headless man on a cross. Inside is a replication of a typical Stalin-era prison cell. Below the Mask of Sorrow are stone markers bearing the names of many of the forced-labor camps of the Kolyma, as well as others designating the various religions and political systems of those who suffered there.
New York has an entrenched and somewhat mystical entanglement with waste management over the course of its history.For the past 34 years, Nelson Molina, a former DSNY worker has collected and maintained an incredible (but unofficial) museum of 45,000 collected objects that were thrown out to the curb by New Yorkers. The short which follows Molina, offers us a glimpse of the collection. The short is titled, Treasures in the Trash and is directed by New York based filmmaker, Nicolas Heller.
My favorite line from Molina is so poetic:
Before you throw something out, think about. Everything can have a home.
Since the museum resides inside an active garage for the Department of Sanitation, it’s not open to the public. But, that could all change with your help! From the video’s description:
The collection is not open to the public since it is in an active garage, but our hope is to get a proper space with the help of this film. Please visit nycstrongest.org/future-museum to donate!
According to Atlas Obscura, you can also email tours@dsny.nyc.gov to schedule a private tour of the MANEAST11 garage’s collection.
I’m especially proud of this one. I was honored to be one of the production assistants on set for this short film. In fact, one of the shot locations happened to be at my old apartment in Brooklyn! It had a particularly remarkable set of stairs. Overall, it was a lot of fun and I was thrilled to be part of this (thanks Rico!).
If you ever get a chance to work on a short film, take it. It’s so rewarding to help make a script come to life.
Okay. This… is just mind-blowingly cool. Just take a peak at this super cute bowl of pasta! The bowl, the fork, the pasta, the veggies… I just can’t. It’s too good. The quality alone has me spellbound, and for whatever reason — reminds me of Katamari Damacy gameplay.
Probably one of the most uplifting, succinct, emotionally touching and truly thoughtful piece of video journalism I’ve seen in 2019. Bob Ross has touched just about everyone on planet Earth. Nearly three decades after his untimely death in 1995, everyone seems to want to know — where are all the Bob Ross paintings now?
Imagine finding an almost-forgotten portrait of your mother in your family house, doing a Google search on the artist’s name and discovering that what you own is a precursor to the artist’s best-known work that sold in 2018 for $1.6 million. This is exactly what happened very recently to one of the members of the Davis family in Texas.
The portrait, Christine, is the latest remarkable find of work by one of the most revered African artists of the 20th century, Ben Enwonwu. The captivating sitter is Christine Elizabeth Davis, an American hair stylist of West Indian descent.
Christine travelled a lot in her life, working in Ghana before moving to Lagos with her British husband in 1969. There, they befriended Enwonwu and Christine’s husband commissioned the work as a gift for his wife in 1971 before they eventually moved back to the US a few years later.
As the Quartz article points out, the portrait, is of Christine Elizabeth Davis. She moved to Lagos in 1969 and befriended Enwonwu. Later, during the 1975 military coup, the Davis family left Lagos, Nigeria and moved to the States and settled in Texas. The painting had been in the family’s possession since its last exhibition in 1978.
As a teenager, Murakami had read “all the great authors” – Dostoevsky, Kafka, Flaubert, Dickens, Raymond Chandler. He spent his lunch money on pop and jazz records. He wanted a lifestyle that guaranteed maximum exposure to the warmth of Western books and music, so he opened a jazz club where the music was too loud for conversation and read books at the bar until his customers considered him anti-social.
And then there was an epiphany. “Yes, epiphany is the word,” he says.
It is, he says, the only truly weird thing that has ever happened to him. He was watching a baseball game between the Yakult Swallows and the Hiroshima Carp one day in April 1978. A US player called Dave Hilton hit the first ball way out into left field. And at that extraordinary moment, Murakami realised he could write a novel.
I began reading 1Q84 a little over a year ago (I’m a slow reader, and admittedly horrible at starting books and not finishing them). I don’t have a long-form review of 1Q84 (other than you should go read it), but I think it’s worth picking up. So, I won’t claim to know or fully understand Murakami’s entire catalogue. But they are ensconced in beautiful and complex vistas I crave to visit and know. Parallels, strange events, pregnant mysteries and enigmatic characters that are his hallmarks — and they are fun.
Kintsugi art dates back to the late 15th century. According to legend, the craft commenced when Japanese shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa sent a cracked chawan—or tea bowl—back to China to undergo repairs. Upon its return, Yoshimasa was displeased to find that it had been mended with unsightly metal staples. This motivated contemporary craftsmen to find an alternative, aesthetically pleasing method of repair, and Kintsugi was born.
There are three types of joinery available in Kintsugi:
Crack – using gold resin, lacquer or dust to fill
Piece method – there may be a missing ceramic altogether, and is replaced entirely with gold/lacquer
Joint call – ceramic piece replacement via a non-matching fragment and gold lacquer to achieve a patchwork effect
Fake cash distributor (Bancomat, Atm). Conceived and produced for the “Ceci n’est pas un Casino”, group show held at the Casino – Forum d’art contemporain in Luxembourg (1 May – 5 September 2010). Terminal was also on show at the Villa Merkel in Esslingen (14 November 2010 – 13 February 2011), and at the MoMA in New York (24 July – 7 November 2011).
Once upon a time, filmmakers Spike Jonze and Sofia Coppola were married. While fitting the dreams of film hipster heaven, their marriage ended long before the Internet could freak out about their seemingly perfect union, not unlike the way it did during the twee super marriage of Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and Zoe Deschanel (it, too, didn’t last). “It’s not Spike,” Coppola insisted in 2003 about Giovanni Ribisi’s portrayal of a character in “Lost In Translation” many felt was a dig at her ex-husband. “But there are elements of him there, elements of experiences. There are elements of me in all the characters.”
Jorge Luengo Ruiz (@jorge_luengo) created this excellent video, a splicing of Lost in Translation and Her. It’s gives me chills to see the parallels between the two directors. The cinematic symmetry is delicious, and yet heartbreaking at the same time:
I’ve been wanting to share this artist’s work on my blog for a long time. So long in fact, I don’t even remember how I came across her paintings in the first place.
Sally West is an oil painter who lives and works in Australia. She has some pretty killer work, but her beach studies have recently blown me away. They’re just deliciously weighty, and the folds of thick dabs of oil produce a dance of motion I really enjoy. If I could afford to buy paintings, Sally West would probably be one of my first fine art purchases. Here’s some of her beach studies from her recent Surf & Snow series:
Given that Americans spend more time in their cars than on vacation. American vehicles are literally, a dashboard confessional for many, others an elysium.
American Interiors depicts the psychological repercussions of war and military service through images of the interiors of cars owned by veterans in the USA.
While some car interiors paint a grim, even bleak picture of veteran life — others are more interesting. Some are quite lively, and a reminder that our lives are complicated. Our country’s system is in shambles. The nightmares of country’s skirmishes and campaigns abroad that persist on were not created, nor are dealt with equally. I applaud anyone who can deal with the horrors of war.
I believe Casteels photography shines a light on problem in America that no one is willing to talk about: plainly, America doesn’t care about their veterans. We build monuments to honor them and praise their services but when it comes time to write a check, raise taxes or give our veterans the medical/psychological help they need — no one is willing to help.
I really hope the private citizen sentiment changes in my lifetime. M L Casteel’s book compiling his photography of veteran’s car interiors over a five-year period, can be purchased from Amazon.
For decades, artist James Turrell has been synonymous with disintegrating the boundaries between space and light, especially within his Skyspace installations peppered throughout the world. Turrell’s New York-based Skyspace installation, titled Meeting, is permanently housed inside of MoMA PS1 in Long Island City—the first of his in the United States, it has been there since 1980. There you come face to face with a rectangular hole in the ceiling, an unobstructed aperture revealing a sublime slice of sky. It’s framed by undulating LED lights, changing in tune with the evening sun’s movements; the sky, and everything around you, appears to shift optically. We don’t need to tell you how rare it is to find this space, and a brief moment to breathe, in the city.
Which is why we were disappointed when we received a tip from one of our readers, who had recently visited PS1 and noticed something creeping into Meeting. The obstruction, pictured in the photograph above, seems to be protruding from the gargantuan high-rises going up across the street from PS1, at 22-44 Jackson Avenue. These two residential buildings, which replaced the former legendary graffiti haven 5Pointz, are also called 5Pointz and will house 1,115 units total (including 223 affordable housing units) when they’re finished.
Meeting, is an beautiful, breathtaking Skyspace work from James Turrell. Visit any of his works, and I think you’ll have an enjoyable experience. An artist, who no doubt has a special and deep cultural significance in American Art. In my opinion, Turrell sits upon the echelon of other great American artists such as Richard Serra, Warhol, Stephen Shore or Willem de Kooning (and many, many others to name).
[…] The neighborly agreement they had allegedly worked out was that the Museum Tower structure wouldn’t go above 20 stories, so as to not interfere with the sculpture center’s aesthetic vibe. However, it seems that after Nasher died in 2007 there was a redesign, and the eventual building now stands some 40 stories tall.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to gain access inside “Tending (Blue)” for a peek at the “destroyed” view. The sign on a sandwich board outside it read:
Because a clear view of the sky from the interior of “Tending (Blue)” is now obstructed by Museum Tower, the artist, James Turrell, has declared the work destroyed.
What happened at the Nasher Sculpture Center was a down-right tragedy, a cautionary-tale (we should hope), a robbery of culture, and a rape of art. I am holding my breath for the Turrell installation at MoMA PS1. All we can do now is hope for the PS1 installation’s survival.
Here's another photo someone dropped in our comments. I kind of love how perfectly NYC this piece is now… pic.twitter.com/AW1LfC98au
Stephen Shore is a languished expert of the American portrait. He has always held a special place in my heart. His work is sublime, relaxed and so beautiful to look at. Shore’s work just captivates me. His photography reads like a journal, and that’s something I think we can all empathize with.
Room 125 West Bank
I was probably 15 years old when I initially discovered Shore’s photographs. I completely fell in love with his color prints when I was able to get my hands on a book from my local library on The Factory.
Room 115, Holiday Inn, Belle Glade, Florida, November 14, 1977
Being a young teenager in the new millennium, I was enamored by Pop Art, and completely devoured any books I could find on the subject. It was all so compelling. These young men and women were completely exploring a new world of art. Subsidized by their wits, cigarettes, chasing fame and drugs — nothing was sacred. Shore was the de-facto documentarian, and an expert in his craft by the age of 14 nonetheless. There was something dignified but unfiltered about his photography of The Factory. Purely raw, and a real thrill to thumb through. You could just hear the echoing transistor radio amidst the cigarette smoking workers.
Susan Hoffman, Dallas, TX, June 12, 1976
Examining some of his photographs from 1974, I felt as if I was in the passenger seat with him. Peering deeply into the few gloss prints I could find in the Time-Life tomes, I saw myself — I saw my father’s amateur photography and my aunt’s artwork as a portal to expression. Something I think I had struggled with growing up. My self-doubt over my own crude artwork began to wash away with every desolate and sublime photo. I realized the importance of process and adventure.
Miami Beach, FL,November 13, 1977
Later, in college I revisited Shore’s work for a class assignment. It couldn’t have been more timely either. I had just gone through a traumatic time dealing with failure. It was as if, I just picked up where I left off with him. Looking back, working on that research project was extremely cathartic. His work served as a reminder of persistence. I can’t be certain exactly what it was, but Shore’s photography really helped me press onward. But of course, with all things in our youth — time passed, and I moved on.
20th St. & Spruce St., Philadelphia, PA, June 21, 1974
I still haven’t seen a print of Shore’s in person. However that may change soon enough, as he has an exhibition at the MoMa going on until May 28th. Since moving to New York City in the beginning of 2017, I’ve been lucky to experience some incredible collections at many of the city’s wonderful art museums. From Kara Walker to Georgia O’Keeffe, the spectrum of work on display are pretty varied here. I love it.
Taylor Street, Fort Worth, TX, June 13, 1976
Shore’s deliberate choice to use large-format cameras and delicate subject matter seems so nonchalant and ethereal. But it feels as though it was shot on a small point-and-shoot. There’s something so casual and fleeting in frame.
I think a few filmmakers and directors of photography have taken cues from Shore — purposely or not. Notably and in no particular order: David Lynch, Guillermo del Toro, David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Wes Anderson, Robert Yeoman, and of course the Coen Brothers.
El Paso Street, El Paso, TX,July 5, 1976
What makes the mundane so compelling here? Perhaps it’s that life moves so fucking fast. Shore’s photography provides a reprieve, a deep breath and a moment to reflect.
Have you ever been on a roadtrip? The scenery changes so quickly we don’t have time to digest. The ephemeral hand-painted signs, or the cashier behind the counter at the gas station, the brass knobs on a door, or the meticuloustephen.newsd soaps in your motel — just quick flashes in the grand scheme. Taken for granted and forgotten.
Bridge Street, Mexico, Maine, July 30, 1974
This is probably why Instagram is a such a popular photo sharing network. Everything is important. Stacked upon the previously important snapshot. A rich slice of life, that everyone can take part of. Perhaps, Shore’s lasting impact on the American landscape wasn’t the culmination of Uncommon Places, but instead merely the plated food photograph. The original Instagramer.
