SHOP WINDOW
SOCIALIZATION . . .
Photographic “letters” produced by
Archie Bishop for Calvin Klein,
January and February 2007.

EDITOR’S NOTE:
For nearly a decade, Archie Bishop has been photographing shop windows in New York, to document and comment on the ways that merchandise behind plate glass becomes a player in concise but eloquent cultural dramas.

Many of these storefront scenarios communicate ideas about sexuality and gender. The two examples shown here, created in January and February 2007, are based upon windows that were up until recently at the Calvin Klein boutique on Madison Avenue and East 60th Street in New York City.

In Bishop’s dark vision, the windows illustrate lessons given to young boys about their emerging manhood and its relationship to women.

Eventually a collection of these pictures will appear in book form. But for now, in these two examples, RLTE readers can consider one take on the complex relationship between cultural artifacts and social ideas.