One of the most talked-about photographers of our time is Alec Soth from Minneapolis. Working in the footsteps of the great American photographers, he gives his own twist to the concept of visual storytelling. For him, the story he tells with his large 8x10 inch camera is always intertwined with his own search for harmony and solidarity with other people. Walking in trendy yellow-green sneakers, Soth has the open look of a chronicler, but during conversation his cheerful openness turns out to be the facade of a hidden introvert poet and day dreamer.

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What was the influence of the New Topographics, the photographers who redefined the concept of landscape photography in the 70s, on Alec Soth? “Joel Sternfield taught photography when I was at the photo academy, but unfortunately I couldn't get into his classes. In the library they had Uncommon Places by Stephen Shore, which greatly influenced me. I mainly responded to the New Topographics in a non-intellectual, emotional way. I was mainly influenced by the poetry of the image and also the technique. Before I started Sleeping by the Mississippi, I looked at all my favorite photographers, such as Stephen Shore, Nicholas Nixon and even Sally Man. And they all used 8x10 inches and I thought: ‘I love all these photographers. I have to try that too.’ And so, I ended up in that line of Shore-Sternfield. But I am very aware of the differences I have with them. It is something subtle. For me it is more a matter of looking inside. Initially I was not a Robert Frank adept. His photos are grainy black and white, but over time I realized that he was the embodiment of inner vision. I am very connected with that part of his approach, but not with his aesthetic. His work is about America, but mainly about Robert Frank himself."

"I have a lot of loneliness in me, whatever that may be.

Charles the dreamer

One of the most iconic photographs of Alec Soth is that of a bearded man with John Lennon glasses, wearing a winter hat, dressed in green overalls, standing in the snow with a model airplane in either hand, with the stars and stripes on the wings. The man, a lonely dreamer, turns out to be a metaphor for Soth himself. “I was driving on a road in Minnesota when I saw a very unusual house. On the top floor there was a room with glass walls and there were strange objects in the garden. I thought ‘an interesting person lives here.’ I turned around, drove to the house and knocked on the door. Charles's wife opened the door and I asked her what the glass room on top of the house was for. She showed me the room and I understood from her story that Charles was a sort of dreamer. I decided to wait until he came home. When he arrived, I saw that he was a solitary dreamer, a type of person to whom I react strongly and to which I feel connected. Charles called his glass space his cockpit. He had pictures of planes there. I see that urge to fly as a metaphor for his dream world. He is a kind of Charles Lindbergh to me. But this Charles is a little dreamer, because he is still standing on the floor. I am intrigued by the small creative actions that people perform to make their lives beautiful, because it has to do with me. I am not an eccentric person. I live a normal life in a normal house, a normal woman and two normal children, but I have a lot of loneliness in me, whatever that may be. I grew up as a child who often played alone and who mainly had adventures in his mind. So, I can well imagine Charles' life, even though I don't live that way.”

‍Midwestern America

Many photographers have explored specific parts of America. For example, Richard Avedon went to the West for his project In the American West. Soth stuck to the middle of America, an area that is actually not special at all. For his book Sleeping by the Mississippi, he traveled down the Mississippi River from the far north to the deep south of the United States. What led him to take the Mississippi as a starting point? “I live in Minneapolis, in the middle of America. I ride the Mississippi every day, so it wasn't a genius decision to take the Mississippi river as a starting point. It is hard to appreciate the center of America. By photographing the Mississippi, I portrayed my own home and precisely the opposite, the unknown. Because the South is totally different, it has a completely different culture. The South has a romantic quality. I often photographed in the spring when it starts blossoming in the south."

In the photo Kym, Polish Palace, Minneapolis, Minnesota 2000, you see Kym, an African-American woman with braids in her hair. She sits in a bar with red walls on a red couch and thinks ahead. She seems to be an example of the people who voted for Trump out of a disappointment in American politics.

“I have always been a defender of Central America. Because I always think it's much more varied and interesting than people usually think. If you have a deeper knowledge of American culture you can see how varied it really is and how the traces of history are present everywhere.”

According to Soth, the Midwest is, of course, the Trump area, but he wants to disprove that image. “If you believe the stereotype stories, everyone there becomes a fanatic racist. Of course, these people feel the economic disappointment. Everywhere you see forms of a temporary economy: growth and then decline. Workers who cannot move easily remain behind in ghost towns. Those people see the immigrants as scapegoats.”

Soth discovered a mixture of hope and beauty in the states around Mississippi. “I don't experience the atmosphere as depressed, but I do see a form of loneliness among the residents. I believe they suffer from a special kind of American loneliness."

Hermits and monks

‍Broken Manual is a series Alec Soth made of lonely people who are locked up in the woods like hermits. At the time of this project, which he worked on for five years, Soth sought an escape from his successful life full of social conventions. He initially did not want to take photos anymore, but rather wanted to buy a cave in which to withdraw. This led him to look for hermits. The title refers to a manual for men who wanted to flee life, a manual that did not work.

“It started with a story of a man who managed to flee the FBI for years. Of course, it was a bandit but he had something romantic like the fact that he could survive in the woods. When I was looking for him, I came across a small monastery. I realized that the dream of living in a monastery is related to the dream of being a survivor, no matter how different they seem. That's why I didn't want a documentary about right-wing extremism or about monks, I wanted the feeling that connects them.”

In this series is a photo of a wall with the words “I love my dad Tony and I wished he loves me.” For Alec Soth, this photo is important for his series because it says a lot about his own feelings in that period: “This boy is mentally ill and lives in a cabin. He closes himself completely and locks everything. And plays movies in his head. The Broken Manual is ultimately about madness if you are without company for a long time. Then you go crazy, you develop characters in your head and then you write on the walls. I wanted to show that feeling through this photo. While making this project I became a little crazy myself. I also started making drawings."

Medium of desire

In the Niagara project, Alec Soth combines grand landscapes with images of love letters. He wanted to portray the atmosphere of romantic love that hangs around Niagara Falls. “I am interested in emotional content that is sometimes very close to the cliché. The photos of the Niagara Falls are cliché and the love letters are also full of clichés. I feel like a songwriter who wants to express a cliché in a new cultivated way, so that you can feel it as something special, even when it concerns general feelings. That is also the difference with the New Topographics. I want emotional content in my work. Photography is intrinsically the medium of desire. Photography wants to stop time. Every family album is always the past. That is why it is full of desire. Photography is also full of death. The beauty of photography is that it also has a certain distance, because there is always that piece of glass between you and the viewer. That's why photography suits me."

"Photography is more like poetry. Right now, my mind is in a poetic state. I just want to go out and take photos and forget all common ideas about storytelling.

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Poetry versus storytelling

The way Soth portrays his themes, with a mix of landscapes, portraits and still lifes - all full of personal references - distinguishes his approach from the sources of his inspiration, such as Joel Sternfield. “When I talk about the historical line in photography, the approach to my subjects is more connected to Walker Evans. I fully share Evans' view that documentary photography is just a style. He essentially had a literary approach to photography. Initially he wanted to become a writer. Like me, he was frustrated about the limitations of photography. That is why he also worked with a writer like I did."

Soth thinks of photography as a medium for storytelling that does not fit with his personal experience of the medium, and he instead wants to focus more on a poetic approach. “Every project comes from the frustration about the limitation of the medium. Photography is not narrative in itself; it is not like a movie or a novel. Photography is more like poetry. Right now, my mind is in a poetic state. I just want to go out and take photos and forget all common ideas about storytelling. I am also not looking for a certain sequence and coherence in the photos because I know that the photos will not be experienced that way later. I also don't expect the audience to react in a fixed way. I am open to very different ways of looking. I leave stories behind me now."

Country art

Soth compares his travels through America with a performance. “I am also inspired by the land art of Richard Long. For him, walking is already a work of art. In this way I experience that driving around is already art in itself. The photos are the result of my trips, but the experience itself is an essential part. Perhaps you could also see Robert Frank's journey as a kind of performance. His journey is in our show; it is such an important part of the job. We look at his photos, but we also think of that Robert who travels through America. I always mention that one photo of his wife and child in his car at the end of his book. That shows that his journey is personal."

The projects of Alec Soth always have an open character. He identifies a broad theme in advance and is surprised by what he finds on the spot. The structure of his books is loose and flexible. Here too, Soth was inspired by the open approach of Robert Frank, who wrote in his grant application that his project was "elastic" in nature. “Making a decision about whether to take a photo is a mixture of thought and intuition, but especially the latter. I do have a concept for my project but that is very open. I have reached a point where I have faith in my intuition. Finally, you have to find your own voice in every artistic area in a relaxed way.”

Alec Soth (b. 1969) is a photographer born and based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has published over twenty-five books including Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004), NIAGARA (2006), Broken Manual (2010), Songbook (2015) and I Know How Furiously Your Heart is Beating (2019). Soth has had over fifty solo exhibitions including survey shows organized by Jeu de Paume in Paris (2008), the Walker Art Center in Minnesota (2010) and Media Space in London (2015). Soth has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2013). In 2008, Soth created Little Brown Mushroom, a multi-media enterprise focused on visual storytelling. Soth is represented by Sean Kelly in New York, Weinstein Hammons Gallery in Minneapolis, Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco, Loock Galerie in Berlin, and is a member of Magnum Photos.
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alecsoth.com

books:
Niagara
Sleeping by the Mississippi
Songbook
Gathered Leaves

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