November 2008
Alec Soth (American, b. 1969)
Two Towels
2004
From the series Niagara (2006)
Minneapolis-based photographer Alec Soth has attained international recognition for his photographic series. Notable are the two series Sleeping by the Mississippi (1999-2004) portraying the river and the life along it’s banks and Niagara (2006) where Soth focuses his large format camera on the hotels, residents loves and lives and the environs around Niagara Falls.
His work is firmly rooted in the documentary traditions of Walker Evans and Robert Frank but pushes the documentary form. Whereas Frank used a foreigners eye and ‘snapshot’ photography to challenge traditional notions of American culture in his seminal book The Americans (1958), Soth photographs everyday events of American life – home, romance, religion, bliss, heartbreak and agony – and constructs his vision of the land and people in poetic form. His use of handwritten notes is especially poignant.
His view of America is both narrative, truth and epic construction. Working in a serial form, Soth builds the themes within his series. The connections between people living their lives and facing their plight together – with dignity – becomes fully evident.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive 
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