Travis Shaffer

Residential Facades

March 2 - May 3, 2012

Residential Façades is a photographic project focused on the documentation of suburbia: overgrown and under-planned. The unadorned “façades” act as a veil of wealth and stability, hinting at the American dream. A dream it seems we can no longer afford. These replicated structures boast an overwhelming sense of the generic; an indexical sign of the death of the local. All of this resulting in the eventual decline of spatially-derived identity and the emergence of a generic suburban, or dare I say American, vernacular. The title itself confronts us with a convenient double entendre, one simultaneously describing the physical face of these homes (and in turn our neighborhoods and projected identities), and the illusion behind which lingers the fragility of a nation.

This body of images, a typology of street facing facades in suburban developments, makes a deliberate reference to Industrial Façades a series of works by photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher. Less specifically, these images call on our memory of the many images associated with the New Topographics exhibition curated by William Jenkins in 1975. Residential Façades (2009 - present) features an ever-growing number of silver gelatin prints, aptly sized to fit IKEA RIBBA frames.

ABOUT THE ARTIST: Travis Shaffer is a visual artist whose work spans the mediums of photography, digital imaging and the artist's book. Shaffer's work engages spatial and institutional communities through a discourse with contemporary visual culture. His work combines visual and textual information gathered from both physical and virtual sources. Thematically Shaffer's work addresses questions regarding the nature of commercial and cultural branding; notions of access and diversity; land-use, the built environment, and auto-centricity; the nature of spatially dictated identity; and the formation of isolated communal brands.

Shaffer's works have been widely exhibited in solo exhibitions, group exhibitions, and artist's book fairs throughout the US, Canada, and Europe. Recent examples include "Fabricated" at Tremaine Gallery, Lakeville, CT; A performance / book-signing at the New York Art Book Fair : MoMA's PS1; "ABC/POD" at Printed Matter in Chelsea, NYC; and "systeMY/systemUS" at Imaginarium Gallery in Lodz, Poland. This fall Shaffer recorded a podcast lecture for #PHONAR - Coventry University in Coventry, England titled "We Are All Thieves, Right", concerning photographic reproduction, meaning, and authorship. Shaffer's work is held in many private and public collections including the Brooklyn Museum's Libraries + Archives collection and Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book + Manuscript Library.

Shaffer was born in southwestern Pennsylvania and currently lives and works in Lawrence, KS. There he is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Photo Media at The University of Kansas. In 2010, Shaffer received an MFA the University of Kentucky. Shaffer is also a member of [ABC] Artist's Books Cooperative, a group of international artists working with Print-on-demand technologies. https://travisshaffer.com/