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John Schott
John Schott's photographs are informed by an early and deep awareness of photographic history and developments of contemporary art, theory, and criticism. His series Route 66 Motels suggests the contradictions of passive description and ironic commentary, having employed a large-format, 8 x 10-inch view camera to record a nominally banal subject. Most importantly, Schott's deliberate choice of equipment supports patient observation. His typological study of a vernacular building type employs seriality to draw greater comparative attention to overlooked aspects of the everyday built environment, a strategic innovation of contemporary art shared by many of the New Topographics photographers. The seriality of Route 66 is also indebted to Ed Ruscha's photographic books of the previous decade, such as Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966). Schott's series reflects too the attention given to the “ugly and ordinary” by architects and critics Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour in their landmark 1973 study Learning from Las Vegas.
1. UNTITLED From the series Route 66 Motels, 1973 Gelatin silver print 8 x 10 in. Gift of the photographer. George Eastman House collections. © John Schott.
2. UNTITLED From the series Route 66 Motels, 1973 Gelatin silver print 8 x 10 in. George Eastman House collections. © John Schott.
3. UNTITLED Gelatin silver print 8 x 10 in. From the series Route 66 Motels, 1973 George Eastman House collections. © John Schott.
Audio excerpt generously provided by John Schott, 2009.
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John Schott reflects on New Topographics.
ROBERT ADAMS
LEWIS BALTZ
BERND AND HILLA BECHER
JOE DEAL
FRANK GOHLKE
NICHOLAS NIXON
JOHN SCHOTT
STEPHEN SHORE
HENRY WESSEL, JR.
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