Word: soth
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Dates: during 2004-2004
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...Alec Soth has had an enviable year. In March, the 35-year-old American photographer's pictures of life on the Mississippi were the hit of the Whitney Biennial in New York City. In June, he was made a nominee of Magnum Photos-the first step to becoming a full member of the prestigious co-operative, and the photography equivalent of landing a junior fellowship at Oxford. Then, in August, his book Sleeping by the Mississippi was published to widespread acclaim (the Washington Post spoke reverently of Soth's "Old Master formality"). The next stop is England, where Soth...
...Shot over five years with a large-format camera, Soth's work depicts a journey that progresses from the snow-covered northern reaches of the Mississippi to the squalor of the Delta. But Sleeping by the Mississippi is less about the river than the spirit of wandering. This is classic American road-trip photography that captures the tender frailties of ordinary people living ordinary lives. Selections from the exhibition will move to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts next March, joining some of Soth's other recent work. Wherever you can see them, his photos are not to be missed...
...What Soth, 34, found along the Mississippi was a full range of fugitive atmospheres and human eccentricities. The mood in his pictures can be drowsy, lonely, lyrical and sometimes just a bit surreal. He works within the great tradition of personal documentary that stretches from Walker Evans through Robert Frank to Soth's teacher, Joel Sternfeld. Though that tradition was pushed aside somewhat by the postmodern antics of the 1980s and the digitally manipulated images of the '90s, Soth's pictures are proof of its enduring strength and ragged glories...
This is not snapshot photography. Soth works in the slow rhythm of the river, with a big 8X10 camera that might as well be a boulder. It requires him to slide in a separate film holder of that size before each duly considered shot. What he does is also not always "pure" documentary. To concentrate the mood or distill a point, he will rearrange things--furniture, objects, backgrounds--to suit himself. "Using that camera," he says, "it's like you're making a painting...
...like a painting, or at least a good one, Soth's photographs have layered meanings. At first glance his picture of Sugar's, a place in Davenport, Iowa, appears to show a room where everything--the upholstered chair, the thick synthetic pile of the carpet, the strident green walls--reaches toward some misconstrued and imperfectly realized ideal of home. But the plot thickens once you know that this awkward chamber is the "green room" of a small-city brothel. (That copy of Hustler on the floor is a hint. So is the picture's title.) That room may be empty...