Stephen Shore was an Instagram artist way before there was Instagram. He shot to prominence in the ’70s with carefully composed snapshots of parking lots, pancake breakfasts, and camping trips, beautiful banalities that future Instagrammers would try to emulate. Now that Shore is actually on the platform, he averages a post a day—and a retrospective of his work, opening at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in November, shows off three years’ worth of his ’grams. Including (obviously) a portrait of his beloved Himalayan cat, Oscar.
Visitors will scan Shore’s feed on iPads, preserving the social media experience of the finger-flicking scroll and the luminous screen. Oh, and don’t compare his animal photography to your own. “When I take a photo of my cat, I’m well aware that there are millions of cat pictures on Instagram,” he says. “The image has to be strong and not depend on it simply being a cat picture.” In this moment with Oscar, the light was just right to highlight the deep pools of his eyes and the ferocity of his gaze. Shore assures us his cat doesn’t look this scary IRL.
This article appears in the November issue. Subscribe now.
