Aisle 3

"We must have a special way of seeing when we are in stores and supermarkets, one that filters out everything but what it is we're trying to see...Colors, shapes, protruding signs and pictures: as the advertisers have devised new ways to garner our attention, the consumers have, I think, developed new strategies of not seeing, out of pure self-defense."

Aisle 3 by Stephen Schaub is a collection of twenty-seven photographs that function as a document and essay on the visual language of retail. To make these pictures, Schaub visited stores and photographed the third aisle. Sometimes it was the "girl" aisle, other times it was full of hunting items. In a supermarket, canned fish sits across from frozen vegetables.

"I was curious to cut a slice from this visual chaos and really look at it, so I decided to focus on just one common element: every image here depicts a different aisle 3," said Schaub.

Aisle 3 is part of "One Week One Book", a series of photographic art books that explore a single theme. Anthropologic, quirky and sometimes voyeuristic, the books look at wide-ranging subjects, from portraits of the backs of people's heads, to still-lives depicting the contents of their refrigerators. The title of the series, "One Week One Book", is both a statement of artist intention and call to action for the reader. Schaub challenged himself to make a photographic essay on a single subject, and turn it into a book, every week for twelve weeks. READ ABOUT THE SERIES

Aisle 3 is available as a single book or in a set of twelve titles.

DETAILS: 66 pages | 8"x9" | perfect-bound | 2020 | ISBN 978-1-927587-44-7 | Published by Kasini House