LAUNCH DATE FEBRUARY 2022

PLEASE NOTE:
Any orders containing this title will not ship until February 2022.

For more information or to pre-order:
www.mackbooks.co.uk

“Although the dream is a very strange phenomenon and an inexplicable mystery, far more inexplicable is the mystery and aspect our minds confer on certain objects and aspects of life.” -Giorgio de Chirico

Stephen Shore’s ‘Modern Instances: The Craft of Photography’ is an experimental new memoir from one of the world’s most prolific artists – an impressionistic scrapbook documenting the rich and surprising touchstones that make up over half a century of groundbreaking work. With essays, photographs, stories and excerpts that draw on Shore’s decades of teaching, this is an essential handbook for anyone interested in learning more about mastering one’s craft and the distinct threads that come together to inform a creative voice. As much as offering a meditation on the influences of a single artist, ‘Modern Instances’ proposes a new way of thinking about the world around us, in which even the smallest moment can become a source of boundless inspiration – if only we pay attention.

PLEASE NOTE: Any orders containing this title will not ship until February 2022.

For more information or to pre-order:
www.mackbooks.co.uk

SCREENINGS:

Monday 14 June:
UK Screening, 18:00 BST London.
In partnership with Village Books (London), The Photographers’ Gallery Bookshop (London)


Tuesday 15 June:
Europe Screening (French subtitles), 18:00 CEST Paris
In partnership with Micamera (Milan),  Dispara (Pontevedra),  Fragment (Copenhagen),  Tronsmo (Oslo),  Artazart (Paris),  0fr (Paris),  La Nouvelle Chambre Claire (Paris),  L’Ascenseur Végétal (Bordeaux),  Le Plac’Art Photo (Paris), Picto La Comète (Paris), La librairie Quai des Brumes (Strasbourg),  Librairie Sans Titre (Paris),  Le Révélateur Phocéen (Marseille),  Kominek (Berlin)


Thursday 17 June:
USA Screening, 18:00 EDT New York / 15:00 PDT Los Angeles.
In partnership with Arcana Books (Culver City, CA)

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT:
www.mackbooks.co.uk

“Photography Isn’t Very Good at Explaining”

MAY 2021
by Brigitte Ollier & Jonas Cuénin

Steel Town by Stephen Shore has just been released by MACK. The book is infused with a sense of austerity, as well as a kind of sadness the source of which is hard to pinpoint. Shore’s color photographs seem both strange and familiar, a bit like a long-forgotten tune. The American photographer does not try to hide the reality; on the contrary, that’s why he’s there. Reality is what motivates this photo story first published in 1977 in Fortune Magazine under the title “Hard Times Come to Steeltown.” Aged 30 at the time, Stephen Shore (b. October 8, 1947), now the author of over 40 books, admits that this was the “the most extensive [editorial commission] I had done for a magazine to that date.” 

To read the full article visit:
www.blind-magazine.com

Americans born in the two decades following World War II grew up in an atmosphere of prosperity and hope. Between 1945 and 1970, US production of goods and services quadrupled, and much of the country began to take its modern form, with highways, motels and office buildings. By 1971, virtually every American household had a refrigerator, a washing machine, a TV, and a vacuum cleaner; and one in three had more than one car. Sure, there were problems, but wages, especially for manual workers, were rising, some of the worst legal barriers to racial equality were gradually being dismantled, and, at least at first, the futile horrors of Vietnam were not widely known.


But as children born in those years went to work, doors were beginning to close. The trouble started in the factory towns of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and upstate New York, and then spread nationwide. In 1976 and 1977, Bethlehem Steel laid off 3,500 workers in Lackawanna, New York, and 3,500 more in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, tripling the unemployment rate there in just one summer. In tiny Conshohocken, Pennsylvania (population 10,000), Alan Wood Steel laid off about 3,000 people. Millions more good manufacturing jobs would be lost in the coming decades, as factories downsized, moved abroad, or shut down completely. Even if some laid-off workers received severance, they now spent less at local bars, department stores, and other business, which soon closed, too, turning downtowns into ghost towns.

Click HERE to read the full article or visit
www.nybooks.com

Available NOW from Mack Books:

In 1977, Stephen Shore travelled across New York state, Pennsylvania, and eastern Ohio – an area in the midst of industrial decline that would eventually be known as the Rust Belt. Shore met steelworkers who had been thrown out of work by plant closures and photographed their suddenly fragile world: deserted factories, lonely bars, dwindling high streets, and lovingly decorated homes. Across these images, a prosperous middle America is seen teetering on the precipice of disastrous decline. Hope and despair alike lurk restlessly behind the surfaces of shop fronts, domestic interiors, and the fraught expressions of those who confront Shore’s 4×5” view camera. Originally commissioned as an extended photographic report for Fortune Magazine in the vein of Walker Evans, Shore’s multifaceted investigation has only gained political salience in the intervening years. Shore’s subjects – including workers, union leaders, and family members – had voted for Jimmy Carter the year preceding his visit; now he found them disillusioned with the new president, fated to leave behind the Democratic party and become the ‘Reagan Democrats’. Through unfailingly engrossing images by one of the world’s acknowledged masters, Steel Town provides an immersive portrait of a time and place whose significance to our own is ever more urgent.

To order your copy visit:
www.mackbooks.com

FORTHCOMING SPRING 2021

STEEL TOWN
Stephen Shore

In 1977, Stephen Shore travelled across New York state, Pennsylvania, and eastern Ohio – an area in the midst of industrial decline that would eventually be known as the Rust Belt. Shore met steelworkers who had been thrown out of work by plant closures and photographed their suddenly fragile world: deserted factories, lonely bars, dwindling high streets, and lovingly decorated homes. Across these images, a prosperous middle America is seen teetering on the precipice of disastrous decline. Hope and despair alike lurk restlessly behind the surfaces of shop fronts, domestic interiors, and the fraught expressions of those who confront Shore’s 4×5” view camera. Originally commissioned as an extended photographic report for Fortune Magazine in the vein of Walker Evans, Shore’s multifaceted investigation has only gained political salience in the intervening years. Shore’s subjects – including workers, union leaders, and family members – had voted for Jimmy Carter the year preceding his visit; now he found them disillusioned with the new president, fated to leave behind the Democratic party and become the ‘Reagan Democrats’. Through unfailingly engrossing images by one of the world’s acknowledged masters, Steel Town provides an immersive portrait of a time and place whose significance to our own is ever more urgent. With a newly commissioned essay by Jane Kramer, The New Yorker’s European correspondent.

PLEASE NOTE: any orders containing this title will not ship until 2021.

For more information or to pre-order:
www.mackbooks.co.uk

STEPHEN SHORE supporting
THE PHOTOGRAPHY PROGRAM AT BARD
MATERIAL FUND

The Photography Program at Bard Materials Fund is a collaboration between ARTISTS SUPPORT and the Bard College Photography Program. Our goal is to make the program accessible by raising money to cover the price of costly photographic materials and gear. Each student in need will receive a kit at the beginning of every semester. This kit will include all the equipment and materials needed in order to create work freely and complete the photography course, without any financial burden.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT:
https://www.artists-support.com/stephen-shore

View on Youtube Live Here
Tuesday November 17, 8:00-9:00 PM EST

STEPHEN SHORE
PROJECT ROOM : INSTAGRAM

October 28 – December 5, 2020

Project Room: Instagram is a selection of works originating from Stephen Shore’s personal social media feed. Presented as unique, dye sublimation prints on aluminum, the artworks preserve the square format and spontaneity of their digital source, while establishing themselves beyond the online platform as physical objects and individual moments to consider.

PLAN YOUR VISIT

Project Room: Instagram is currently on view at 303 Gallery in New York,

Click here to schedule your visit