Alec Soth at UPenn

Friday, April 17th, 2009

After seeing Zoe post about Alec Soth [rhymes with 'both']being in town and giving a talk , I cleared my alreadyunobstructed schedule and made my way across the way toUPenn's Meyerson Hall. Soth is one badass photog and is amember of the Magnum elite [no, not the Zoolander Magnum].

Soth began his talk by explaining the title: a paralyzed cyclopsin the democratic jungle. He broke down the title into twoparts. First the "paralyzed cyclops" which is a quote by theBritish artist David Hockney who once said:

Photography is alright, if you don't mind looking at theworld from the point of view of a paralyzed Cyclops – fora split second.

Second, the "democratic jungle" is an ode and critiqueof William Eggleston'sDemocratic Forest, published 1989. Sothtalked about Eggleston (the man credited with making colorphotography a fine art form) and the notion of everythingbeing worthy of being photographed (yes, he also broughtup Garry Winogrand, who died with thousandsof undeveloped rolls of film).

Soth discussed, in depth, his frustration with photography inthe few years. The proliferation of digital cameras and theinternet results in 4,000,000 images uploaded to flickr everyday. He sees so much similarity in single, fragmented photosthat he can pick random images and put them on the screennext to ones shot by Eggleston, Richard Prince and others. Hespecifically noted the 2 billionth flickr upload and how it looksjust like an Eggleston photo – just something. But how were allthese random images different from those of acceptedmasters?

The rise of the amateur photograph pushing news stories leadsto the question of the absolute need for dedicated pros. Sothpointed to two images made by fellow Magnum photog ElliottErwitt. One was a famous photograph of Richard Nixon shovinghis index finger into the chest of Nikita Khrushchev in 1959.The other photo was one shot just a few months ago duringObama's inauguration with the Obamas greeting a sea ofpeoples' digicams and cellphones. All you see is a sea of bluishLCD screens. Soth asked: Do you really need ElliottErwitt there?.

Further pressing the argument, he presented two moreamateur photos. Thetwitpic of the Hudson River plane crashlanding by Abu Gharib hooded detainee photos. The photosthat report the news first have increasingly been taken byamateurs with their cellphones. It's almost impossible tocompete.

But instead of competing, Soth spoke of two mediums wherethe photographic narrative – something fragmented shots don'tshow – shines: the slideshow and the photo book (preferablywithout text).

Soth traced back his photographic lineage back to his roots inMinneapolis, MN and college at Sarah Lawrence (right aroundwhere I grew up). He pointed to a photo lecture he attended(didn't catch the name of the photographer) where thephotographer traveled the country in his car taking photos andduring the slideshow, he showed a photo of a landscape ofjust-turning-to-fall foliage, mountains and a parking lot. In thelot was the photographer's car. Soth realized that he too couldjust get into his car and drive. So he did. During spring breakone year, he drove from Minnesota to Memphis, TN and madesome photos. He told of how he used to be scared of takingphotos of people right through college. He's obviously gottenover that, but it took time.

After graduating from Sarah Lawrence, he had a job in a labwhich resulted in him being in bars a lot late at night. It washere where he first started taking photographs of people indepth, strangers at that. Those bar photos launched him intohis "From Here to There" series where each photo he tookconnected, admittedly ham-fistedly, to the next. A photographof a kid with a chicken leading to a guy with an egg who has aSuperman tattoo which lead to a photo of a Superman outfit ona hanger. But the leaps were too literal. He switched mediumsto color photography and his leaps became larger with more ofa story to them, more of the narrative he was seeking. Aphotograph inside a church in Alabama, the World's SmallestChurch, actually. The next photograph in the series took him toIceland (what is it about Iceland that attracts photographs likea moth to a fire?!) where he photographed another World'sSmallest Church [cue laughter].

He started using the internet, the very thing he feels is killingphotography to an extent, to find his subjects. A photograph ofSunshine, a lady sprawled on a Memphis bed with blue paintedfingernail (about halfway through this set) leads to a man inIsrael who photographs fetish fingernails. Soth is intrigued andtries to learn about "fingernail fetish" photography. Which leadshim to Kym (10th photo in same series), who had never leftMinnesota except for a single trip to Alabama. Kym tells Soththat she took a trip there and took lots of photos, but forgot

her camera in the cab to the airport back home. Soth tells herhe'll go to Alabama and retake those photos for her andlaunches his next series: "Sleeping by the Mississippi" – all thisthrough wandering through free association jumbling.He described his photographer-subject relationship as such:

I don't live with these people for weeks to find out whothey are. I'm like a bird who circles and circles and then[snap] swoops down to grab a fish… It's kind of crass.

He showed a short video of how he frantically uses handgestures to talk a subject, standing on the side of a snowyhighway, to pose for him and his 8×10 view camera completewith dark cloth. He notes that during his fiddling with hisequipment, the subject gets to think about other things likewhat he's going to eat for lunch or if Soth is ever going toactually take a photo. This way, the subject doesn't stress somuch about how he looks. I'd argue that the opposite mightvery well be happening most of the time.

Soth was asked about how his travel has affected his family.He summed up by saying, "It's hard" and that it was a constantstruggle. He doesn't bring his family along in a car like RobertFrank shows in his final image of The Americas: a shot of hiswife and son in the front seat of the car while traveling toTexas. Soth exclaimed "I hate photography and I'm ruining myfamily. All part of the cheery lecture series!"

It was an interesting talk given by a contemporaryphotographer I was somewhat familiar with, but not to theextent I want to be after hearing him talk. I'm quite interestedin his work now. His switch from large format (his begrudgingly"signature" look) to digital. His struggle to find the narrativework giving a set of photographs a true body. He's been up toa few projects recently which have rekindled his faith includinga 2.5 week stint in the Republic of Georgia. But he still feelsthe immense weight of the internet and the digital age loadedon his shoulders. The disconnect from image to image. Theconstant shutter clapping to nowhere perhaps reinforced bywhat I'm assuming to be a Penn student clicking away from

about 5' for the entire 1.5h hour talk – that was annoying forus all.

Soth [at right] gladly stayed in the auditorium after the talk totake questions and talk to those who came by. I quicklysnapped a few frames for this post.

Top photo by Alec Soth from his Dog Days, Bogotá series.