Alec Soth: A Pound of Pictures

Alec Soth: A Pound of Pictures
Feb 3, 2022 – Mar 26, 2022

49 Geary Street
San Francisco, CA 94108

Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present A Pound of Pictures, a new body of work by Alec Soth. In photographs made on a series of road trips across the U.S., Soth records people and locations with subtle connections. The series features images that reference photography itself, investigating the physicality of the medium and its limited ability to preserve what is fleeting. The exhibition is accompanied by a monograph published by MACK, and will have concurrent presentations at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York, and Weinstein Hammons Gallery in Minneapolis. Fraenkel Gallery will host a ticketed opening reception with the artist on Saturday, February 5, from 1-4pm.

Soth's subjects include Niagara Falls tourists, Fire Island beachgoers, lush wildflowers, and piles of photographs—the title of the series was inspired by a person Soth met who sold photographs by weight. Soth began the series as a tribute to Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman, but later decided to widen his approach. Using his camera as an "excuse to wander and dig," Soth follows his intuitive attention, returning to places he visited for past projects and exploring new subjects. He writes that beyond their surface, the photographs are largely about "the process of their own making. They are about going into the ecstatically specific world and creating a connection between the ephemeral (light, time) and the physical (eyeballs, film). These accumulated connections hopefully create constellations of possible meaning."

Alec Soth (b. 1969) is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His photographs have been featured in numerous exhibitions, including solo survey shows organized by Jeu de Paume, Paris; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and MediaSpace, London. In 2008, Soth created Little Brown Mushroom, a multi-media enterprise focused on visual storytelling. In 2021, as part of a collaboration with jazz drummer Dave King, Soth began appearing as The Palms, in performances that combine music and photographs. His work is in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and many other institutions. The artist's monographs include Sleeping by the Mississippi, NIAGARA, The Last Days of W, Broken Manual, Gathered Leaves, Songbook, and I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating. Soth has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013. He is a member of Magnum Photos.


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