Stephen Shore on His Love of the Game

Rail: Could you talk about what you were interested in with the baseball photographs?

Shore: It could not be simpler. I love baseball. When Ginger and I were dating and first living together in ‘77 and ‘78 we were probably averaging thirty games a year, and in those years we went to every home game that Ron Guidry pitched. He was at the peak of his form and it was amazing to watch him. This was a large part of my life and some of those people were my absolute heroes. [The third baseman for the Yankees, Mickey Mantle, was one the most eloquent baseball players I’ve ever seen play]. It’s the simplest thing. I like posing problems for myself. The idea of photographing a sport with an 8×10 camera—it’s interesting.

Rail: The idea of finding those exposures—1/8th of a second, 1/15th of a second…

Shore: Some are faster, but part of it is that in a number of different motions there are often moments of rest, so if a batter is waiting for a pitch and is going like this (gestures) the moment that the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand he goes (make a gesture) but only for a fraction of a second before he starts to swing. But if my timing is right I get him like that. There’s all this kinetic energy, but he’s absolutely still. There’s this one point of balance or transition of energy that, if your timing is right, you can stop the action with a view camera.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen any of the black-and-white New York street pictures I’ve done. The idea of doing Winnogrand-esque street photography with an 8×10 camera—I thought, this would be interesting to do.

Excerpt from an interview in the Brooklyn Rail

“…images of sportspeople from the 2000 Summer Olympic Games coming fourth in their various competitions. Seeking to underline their outsider status, the images are treated so only the ignoble fourth place holder is highlighted…” From Wikipedia

Found Baseballs

“I began collecting these baseballs in the winter of 2004-2005. Discovered in the park near my house where I walk my dog daily, they went unnoticed by others. Abject, rejected and forlorn, their state depended on the season of their discovery. Some hid in the high grass, gutted by lawnmowers, or under leaves, rotting, the leather skins long since decomposed. Covered in ice crystals on a February morning or shrouded in summer moss, they all hinted at mysterious pasts.

Although I knew that one day I would photograph the burgeoning collection, most sat along a shelf in my studio for nearly a year before the exploration started. At last, I decided to photograph them above a flat field and with deep depth of focus, revealing, as much as I could, their distinct resumes.”

From Jen Bekman’s 20×200 

See more work at Don’s Inter Web Home Page

Rebecca Loyche’s Interweb

“One of the defining features of the 1980s, when this sculpture was made, was the growth of consumerism. Koons, a former stockbroker, made a series of works presenting consumer items in glass cases. Removed from any practical purpose, they become fetish objects to be gazed at and admired. This work was originally made for an exhibition on the themes of achievement, survival and death. Posters in the exhibition presented basketball as a means of achieving fame and fortune for young working-class Americans. According to Koons, the suspended basketballs suggest death, the ultimate state of being.” - From the Tate’s Display Caption!

Grazia Toderi dives deep into the psychic heart of the world’s intersection of action and mass events as theater.

Gustavo Artigas’s Home Page

“In his videos and live actions that often evoke visceral reactions in viewers, Artigas directs performances that range from a football and soccer game being played on the same field to a motorcycle driving through a museum. He is developing a new work, Ball Game, in collaboration with an at-risk youth summer basketball league for this exhibition. ” 

Tom from Institute for Aesthletics has posted pictures from the Tikal vs Tical, Street Mayan Ball Game. Check them out HERE.

This composition of a pair of facing bleachers eliminates the field and focuses instead on the arena of the fans. Here, the spectators who take their seats to bear witness to a game are placed in a position to view each other - thereby becoming participants in the event.

Check his Radical Website