return to menureturn to menu|
ALEC SOTH : PORTRAITS Essay by Cynde Randall |
|
|
The extraordinary photographs of Alec Soth testify to the gifts of a great artist. Soth’s eye—his perceptual and psychological discernment—is supercharged. The art of this thirty-six-year-old photographer extends the formidable tradition of personal documentary work practiced by earlier greats such as Robert Frank and William Eggleston. Portraits have formed the core of Soth’s artistic inquiry, yet he is not limited or defined by any particular subject. He moves easily across conventional lines, making powerful pictures of people, animals, domestic interiors, cityscapes, and landscapes. And while his most recent photographs have come into being through large-format equipment, he also employs medium square-format cameras and digital technology. Soth’s rise to prominence can be traced through a constellation of recent achievements: His photographic quest along the Mississippi, through small towns and byways, to create the epic series “Sleeping by the Mississippi.” Publication by the German house Steidl, in 2004, of a book containing large-format chromogenic color prints from that series. And the showing of selected works from “Sleeping” in both the Whitney and the São Paolo 2004 biennials. Today the critically acclaimed Soth is a nominee member of the legendary photo cooperative Magnum and works on regular assignment for publications like the New York Times, Life, and Fortune. He exhibits his independent projects nationally and internationally, with recent shows at Pace MacGill in New York, Wohnmaschine in Berlin, Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Santiago de Chile. Soth’s latest work, a stunning array of never-before-exhibited large-format color portraits, is now featured in “Alec Soth: Portraits,” presented by the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program (MAEP) at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. These portraits are drawn from all walks of Soth’s artistic life—from Magnum editorial assignments, private commissions, personal projects including “From Here to There” and “Sleeping by the Mississippi,” and discrete images gathered during art-related travel. His subjects include everyday strangers and celebrated authors and artists, whom he encountered throughout the United States and on recent travels to Iceland, Germany, Canada, Brazil, China, and Britain. Much has been said about the transparency of the straight photograph and the idea that the photographic image is simply the camera’s record of light bouncing off a referent object. But Soth considers his photographs to be a record of the space between the subject and himself. His is a more participatory definition of photography, and he sees himself as the protagonist in the process. Soth is most interested in shooting what is new to him. Rarely does he photograph friends, family, or familiar surroundings. His vision is driven by curiosity. He credits his solitary wanderings for heightening his awareness—for his ability to spot the right person, even in a crowd. On a recent assignment in China, he waited at the entrance of a subway. “I probably watched five hundred people pass by the tunnel entrance,” says Soth. “I knew the instant that I saw this one young man that I wanted to take his portrait.” Describing the experience of meeting Odessa (Odessa, Joelton, Tennessee, 2004) while on assignment for Life magazine in Tennessee, Soth recalls: “Odessa was visiting her boyfriend while he played war games in Joelton. I was attracted to her the second I saw her. The attraction is not unlike falling in love at first sight. It is a physical, not cognitive, reaction. I became interested in the ‘idea’ of her.” Soth wondered what her story was. “But this isn’t the point. I’m interested in the beauty of the mystery. I’m standing here; she’s standing there. In the space between there is a gulf, a mystery, and for me, an attraction.” That is what Soth seeks to behold and to capture: the invisible gulf, the space that connects us, holding everything together. Because of Soth’s remarkable ability to get a psychological read on his subjects, his pictures evoke interior landscapes—places filled with creative longing, determination, or brooding loneliness. In Sydney, Tallahassee, Florida (2004), Soth presents a dreamy, timeless picture of a little girl with pink hair, resting her head while she waits for the photo session to end. The lily in her hair echoes the white shapes in the tablecloth’s harbor scene, and the entire image reads like a surreal landscape. We don’t need to know that Sydney is dressed for Halloween. This archetypal child, with eyes wise beyond her years, could just as well belong to the past or to the future. Pictures like this are the outward signs of inward grace, a revelation of the subject’s soul, unfettered by culture or time. Certainly Soth’s old-fashioned 8-by-10-inch camera plays a role in his subjects’ experience with him. Physically cumbersome, daunting in its complexity, the large-format camera slows time down. Soth may spend a good twenty minutes under the camera cloth, setting up the shot. “I can really stare at people under that cloth,” he says. As Soth lingers over the image in the lens, his subjects relax; letting go of any initial need to perform, they become fully incarnate, fully themselves. Soth likens his process to that of Andy Goldsworthy, the famous earthwork artist. Like Goldsworthy, he arranges the temporary contextual elements until the right relationship between things is established. The New York Times Magazine recently hired Soth to photograph Goldsworthy at work on a commission for the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Soth photographed him while he prepared for the project in Ithaca and during the installation in New York. “The first day I met with Goldsworthy, he produced this temporary sculpture with icicles. Since this really had nothing to do with the commission, the image wasn’t used in the story. But I think this practice of making small, temporary sculptures is closer to the heart of Goldsworthy’s work. For me, photography is also about this very fleeting moment. With portraiture, you have this brief time with a subject, sometimes minutes, sometimes hours, but it is always brief. Inevitably you are battling the weather, the time of day, the mood, etc. You scurry around trying to make the thing, snap the shutter, and it all begins to dissipate. It is profoundly temporal. And the photograph serves as a document of this encounter.” The most humorous of Soth’s portraits features Boris Mikhailov. “While in Berlin, I tracked down Boris, the great and gritty Russian photographer, who now lives in Berlin. One of things I love about Boris is that he exposes himself on film (both literally and figuratively). Of course, it was different when he posed for me. At first he was reluctant. But then he took off his shirt and pressed his skin to show me his pacemaker. But he seemed most himself when he stuck the carrots in his ears.” Soth’s uncanny ability to connect with strangers, even people who do not share his language, is evident in Boy with Flowers, Beijing, China (2004) and Alessandra, São Paulo, Brazil (2004). The power of adolescent sexuality resonates in Young Woman, Beijing, China (2004), a picture of an alluring but defiant young woman. Her stunning ensemble—black laced boots, halter top, denim hotpants, and orange belt slung low on her hips—plays off the black fencing behind her, which supports two climbing roses whose magenta flowers float like wings around her shoulders. In the course of his magical journey along the Mississippi, Soth encountered many interesting characters. Peter, Winona, Minnesota (2002) is one of three never-before-exhibited portraits featured in the current exhibition. “While working on ‘Sleeping by the Mississippi,’ I would often ask people to describe their dream. I would have them write this down on a sheet of paper. Peter is an artist who has been living on a houseboat on the Mississippi for twenty-five years (a picture of his houseboat is one of the signature images in ‘Sleeping by the Mississippi’). While most of the people I photographed wrote their dream down on a white sheet of paper, Peter found a big poster to write on. Like a good photograph, his dream is both incredibly concrete (running water) and simultaneously poetic.” Alec Soth sees what most people do not. Happily for us, he makes an enduring gift of his vision, bearing witness to the beauty and complexity of human interactions. We perceive ourselves in his art. The space between our selves and the photograph resonates with our recognition. In this triangle we are no more (or less) lonely, tragic, or heroic than any of Soth’s subjects. –Cynde Randall Cynde Randall is an artist and the Program Associate for the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program. Related events: |
|
|
Cynde Randall's essay - downloadable pdf  |
|
  |