SPARC Gallery Exhibition “Stand Alone” – Photographs by Mark Swope

The South Pasadena Arts Council (SPARC) is pleased to present our next exhibition, Stand Alone, in the SPARC Gallery of the work of photographer Mark Swope.

Mark Swope is a Los Angeles-based photographer, whose ideas were formed by the photographers of “New Topographics aesthetic in the 1970’s. Photographers in that group included, among others, Robert Adams, Stephen Shore, John Gossage, Lewis Baltz, and Bernd and Hilla Becher. The prevailing imagery focused of these photographers on a straightforward, documentary style, commenting on the changing contemporary urban landscape.

Mark studied art and received a BA from Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.

Mark’s interest in photography dated from growing up in his father’s home, surrounded by photographs. His father, John Swope was a respected photographer in his own right, and when Mark began archiving his father’s work, he began to focus full time on photography. As a native, he felt he did not know much about his own city and started to explore LA through his camera.

He began traveling around to different parts of the country, looking for places that were very ordinary. He wanted to isolate these places into disjointed sculptural formations. As curator Sam Mellon states – “Focusing on simple lines and shapes, he collects buildings and spaces that have not yet been cleared away and reinvented in the pursuit of progress. Like the photographers of the generation before him, Swope offers the viewer an honest photograph, stripped of conventional beauty, emotion, or artistic frills, and reduced to the bare essence of its physical attributes”.

The SPARC Gallery is located at 1121 Mission Street, South Pasadena. Gallery hours are Tuesday – Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. or by appointment. Please call the Chamber of Commerce before arriving at (626) 441-2339.