How was 2014 for Stephen Shore?
The legendary New York photographer on Instagram, Anselm Kiefer and what's coming next
From enjoying the largest ever retrospective of his prolific, exemplary photographic career to collaborating with the high street clothing chain Uniqlo on a range of teeshirts featuring his most iconic photographs, 2014 has been good to Stephen Shore.
Phaidon was with him all the way, reporting on his endeavours online and publishing From Galilee to the Negev, an intimate portrait, exploring the landscape of Israel and the West Bank; its complexities and its contradictions.
While his career continues to flourish and his work reach an ever-expanding audience (if you haven’t checked out his Phaidon books yet, what’s taking you?) this quiet spoken New Yorker hosted a number of talks, most notably at Paris Photo LA, with the likes of the Met’s Jeff Rosenheim, with fellow artist Taryn Simon, and fellow Phaidon author Jerry Badger (the man behind The Photobook III) at a discussion at the Barbican’s Constructing Worlds show (curated by yet another Phaidon author, Shooting Space's Elias Redstone.
All in all it’s been a long journey for the photographer who, as you probably know, sold his first photos to MoMA New York while barely into his teens and who within a few years was hanging out with Andy Warhol at the Factory. So, how was 2014 for Stephen Shore? Well, while his answers may be concise they are illuminating.
What was the thing that inspired you most this year? The Anselm Kiefer exhibition at the Royal Academy.
What was your personal working highlight this year? Beginning to explore Instagram as a medium.
What can we expect from you in 2015? I'm looking forward to finding out the answer to this.
Actually we can give you a clue readers as we’ll be publishing Stephen’s latest book Stephen Shore: Survivors in Ukraine towards the end of next year. Some of the photographs in it form a body of work Stephen spent last year working on in the Ukraine. You can see some of them in this story.
Meanwhile, don't forget to check out From Galilee to the Negev, which saw Shore travel the length and breadth of the region, questioning and revealing through his camera lens. With a selection of texts by a diverse range of writers who each selected one photograph as a spring board, it really is a complex, rich and rewarding investigation into a multi-faceted place.