1/27/10: 1st Visiting Artist/1 Idea: Alec Soth

 Alec Soth "like both"

Alec Soth Photography
Representation
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Alec Soth startles the sleepers along the Mississippi for a brief but profound moment; they open their eyes to his camera just long enough to reveal the immemorial, often dreamless, sometimes hopelessly trashy quality of their sleep, then sink back into the mud of their impecunious marginality. Alec Soth's visual journey has the decency (or affection) to disturb none of his subjects, though he disturbed me, a viewer, plenty.
Andrei Codrescu, poet and NPR contributor 2003

Joshua, Angola State Prison, Lousiana 2002

Venice, Lousiana 2002

Alec Soth was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1969) where his work is also based. He has received numerous fellowships and is in the collections of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His first work Sleeping by the Mississippi was published in 2004 and since then he has published NIAGARA (2006), Fashion Magazine (2007), Dog Days, Bogata (2007) and The Last Days of W (2008).  

 

I thoroughly enjoyed Alec's lecture last night. It was refreshing for me to see the process behind an artist's work and be able to relate to how one functions. He showed us an image of his steering wheel with a written list of images he strives to make. List making and keeping a journal/sketchbook is very essential. I'm sure there are some that do not function in this manner, but it is very helpful. Soth mentioned Hockney's "paralyzed cyclops" and Eggleston's "Democratic Forest". I thought these were interesting concepts and inspirational launching pads for Soth. He said that to shoot democratically you pick up the camera and photograph anything and everything. Hockney said, "photography is all right if you don't mind looking at the world from the point of view of a paralyzed cyclops -- for a split second." I think that Hockney must have said this at a frustrated part in his career because he continues to break the mold in his own photography.

To the love of my life 2005

Soth had a lot to say before he even showed his own work. He spoke about the idea of doing narrative photography, attempting to tell a story. He pointed out that most attempts at the narrative are actually staged/hollywood-like images. He attempts to photograph actual narratives, traveling from here to there and "connecting dots". He bases his work method on a trip he made in college with his girlfriend. He now travels around with his dog doing different documentarian type projects. Sleeping by the Mississippi is an interesting project where he juxtaposes portraits of people and images of sleeping environments. When he takes their pictures, he asks them what their dreams are. Niagara was a piece about love, romance and sex. He photographed newlyweds primarily and was curious as to why they came to an enormous waterfall. He spoke about how new love is destructive and started collecting love letters.  

Heart 2005

Overall, I enjoyed Soth's honesty and commentary on photography to today. I look forward to researching some of the ideas he mentioned. He was a great speaker and I hope that we have more in the future that are as willing to share as he.