The first-ever collaboration between Shepard and the estate of legendary photographer Jim Marshall, American Civics, debuts this month! Shepard is interpreting Marshall's iconic photography from the 1960's, including images of Johnny Cash, Cesar Chavez, and Fannie Lee Chaney, with five new works, vividly depicting the humanity behind some of the country's enduring social issues: Voting Rights, Mass Incarceration, Worker's Rights, Gun Culture, and Two Americas.
"This obsession with guns is ingrained, and it starts at a young age. And that kid could have innocently been playing 'good guys and bad guys,' but it also has a deeper implication of just how culturally ingrained guns are and how that allows gun ownership to trump safety. The sidewalk is the American flag. That to me — it's such a loaded symbol — and sometimes that can be something that is an easy gimmick, but I really think it's meaningful in this because it's almost [as if] you're un-American if you don't support gun rights."
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