NEW YORK—Last winter the legendary photographer Stephen Shore received an unusual request from Howard Greenberg Gallery: Would he be interested in curating an exhibition that included his students from the renowned photography program at Bard College? The answer was, “yes,” and the resulting collaboration, Bard x HGG, pairs work by seven of Shore’s recent graduates with photographs by historic 20th century artists from the Gallery’s vast archives. The exhibition will be on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery from June 20 through August 29, 2019. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, June 20, from 6:00-8:00 p.m.
“Stephen Shore is a bridge connecting contemporary photography with the history of photography,” said Howard Greenberg. “As a contemporary figure and an important part of photo history, he is in a unique position to be able to connect a new generation of photographers and viewers.”
“I think of myself as both a photographer and a teacher and am delighted to have this opportunity to show my student’s work,” said Stephen Shore, Program Director & Susan Weber Professor in the Arts at Bard College. “Each of the recent graduates (from 2017 and 2018) is represented by a series of pictures so you can get a sense of their thought process and artistic practice.”
Works by the Bard graduates—Jasmine Clarke, Madison Emond, Briauna Falk, Vanessa Kotovich, Jackson Siegal, Naomi Zahler, and Ying Jing Zheng—are paired with photographs by Dave Heath, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Lisette Model, Frederick Sommer, Stephen Shore, Joseph Sudek, and Minor White from Howard Greenberg Gallery’s extensive holdings.
Shore noted that the pairings vary from artist to artist, often highlighting an aspect of the recent graduate’s work. For the work by artists from the Gallery, Shore selected images by many photographers with whom he has personal connections: “David Heath was a friend to me when I was 14 and taught me about printing, and I was in a 10-day workshop run by Minor White when I was at the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut.”
Providing a gateway to the exhibition, work by Don Donaghy will be presented within the context of Bard x HGG. “While going through the Gallery’s archive, I came across Donaghy’s work and thought it would be wonderful to show,” said Shore. “His work was considered cutting edge in the 1960s. Yet, his photographs disappeared from public view despite the important role they played in the development of contemporary photography.”
About Stephen Shore
Stephen Shore's work has been widely published and exhibited for the past 45 years. He was the first living photographer to have a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since Alfred Stieglitz, 40 years earlier. He has also had solo shows at George Eastman House, Rochester; Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Jeu de Paume, Paris; and Art Institute of Chicago. In 2017, the Museum of Modern Art opened a major retrospective spanning Stephen Shore's entire career. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His series of exhibitions at Light Gallery in New York in the early 1970s sparked new interest in color photography and in the use of the view camera for documentary work. More than 25 books of Shore’s photographs have been published. His work is represented by 303 Gallery, New York; and Sprüth Magers, London, Berlin, and Los Angeles, where his work will be on view from June 19–August 30, 2019. Since 1982 he has been the director of the Photography Program at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, where he is the Susan Weber Professor in the Arts.
About the Photography Program at Bard College
Bard College’s Photography Program, led by Program Director Stephen Shore, is widely recognized as having one of the strongest faculties in the country. It is noted for its traditional grounding in photographic techniques, and the range of aesthetic approaches of its students. Bard College, a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences, is located 90 miles north of New York City on nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; nine early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 159-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world. The undergraduate program at the main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement.