Steve Fitch: American Motel Signs

AMERICAN MOTEL SIGNS
STEVE FITCH

BOOK SIGNING & EXHIBITION OPENING
Saturday December 10th, 2016 3–5pm

PHOTO-EYE BOOKSTORE + PROJECT SPACE
376 GARCIA STREET, SANTA FE, NM 87501
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
ANNE KELLY, ANNE@PHOTOEYE.COM
505-988-5152 X 121

ABOUT THE EVENT
photo-eye welcomes Represented Gallery Artist Steve Fitch to our Bookstore Project Space for an Exhibition Opening and Book Signing from 3 – 5pm on Saturday, December 10th. Fitch will be present to sign copies of his latest monograph American Motel Signs 1980–2008, a collection of color photographs just released by London-based publisher The Velvet Cell. In celebration, a selection of works from the American Motel Signs series will be installed in the Project space through February 18th, 2017.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK
In American Motel Signs Steve Fitch crisscrossed the United States documenting the colorful dynamic, advertisements inviting weary traveler to park their car and pack it in for the night. Tinged with nostalgia, these delightfully garish motel signs lovingly recall a mid 20th Century road culture speaking to a sense of independence and freedom central to the contemporary American identity. A trained anthropologist, Fitch’s approach to American Motel Signs is almost scientific. Images of a single subject are crafted with and observational distance and a democratic square frame inviting viewers to compare regional differences in detail, design, and landscape under the umbrella of a single society seemingly focused on fun, travel, and leisure. For Fitch, much of his photographic work was inspired by childhood family road trips from Northern California to South Dakota and continues to focus on what the artist has termed the ‘vernacular of the journey’.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Steve Fitch is an American photographer born in 1949. He earned an MFA from the University New Mexico in 1978 and has taught photography at UC Berkeley, the University of Colorado in Boulder, Princeton University, and since 1990, at the College of Santa Fe. Fitch's photographs are included in the permanent collections of such museums as the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and The Chicago Art Institute.