Tivoli, New York, November 22, 2025, by Stephen Shore
Selected by Stephen Shore
In the late 1960s, when I was spending a good bit of my time in London, I kept up with the news from home by reading, every morning, The International Herald Tribune. This was a time of the Vietnam War, the protests, the Civil Rights Movement, and the MLK and RFK assassinations. The country felt as though it was truly falling apart. Yet each time I returned home, I found that, despite the searing import of these events, life went on: People went to work, they played ball in the park, the seasons changed, and gardens emerged from their winter dormancy. The Trib didn’t report this. It gave the news; it didn’t describe the sinews that held life together.
Stephen Shore is author of the forthcoming The Mental Image and director of the photography program at Bard College, where he is the Susan Weber Professor in the Arts.
Photo-Illustration Source Images: Unmanned Drone, Patrick T. Fallon—AFP/Getty Images; Last Garment, Vincenzo Pinto—AFP/Getty Images; Norman Rockwell, Rosie the Riveter, 1943, Oil on canvas, 52 x 40 in. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2007.178. Photography by Dwight Primiano., Claire McCardell. Richard Rutledge—Condé Nast/Getty Images
Correction, April 28, 2026: The original version of this article misstated Leilani Lynch’s job title—she is now a curator, not an associate curator—and the title of Alec Soth’s book, which is Advice for Young Artists, not Young Authors; in addition, Salamishah Tillet is now distinguished professor at Rutgers and Theaster Gates no longer works at UChicago.
