Alec Soth Talk At Mass Art - AND, Why he killed the blog!
Last night Mr. Soth came to talk at Mass Art. I met Alec Soth, and for the first time in a while, I was not disappointed by an artist’s talk.
The setting was a little odd for an artist talk. They shoved about 200-300 people in a room with a projector and 50 chairs. I sat about 4 feet from the screen at the front of the room while he spoke for two hours, so I got a good look at the man behind the beard. I am more or less going to give a short play by play of what he showed, and then a few comments for those who missed it.
He started off by saying that he feels overwhelmed, or is feeling the weight, of the amount of digital media that floods our eyes today. He asked the question that a lot of us are asking; how can photographer’s survive when the technology keeps getting better, faster, and more accessible everyday? He transitioned from there into some things he does on the internet, randomly generating phrases and putting them into google images to see what comes out. He then went on to explain the narrative arc and how photographers don’t have the same privilege as writers or film makers. Instead, we get to randomly connect the dots that don’t make any sense. From there he showed the beginning process of Sleeping by the Mississippi, which he explained to be a “from here to there” project” at first. He wrote about it on his blog awhile ago so you can read that here if you are interested. He then explained how while he was in school, Joel Sternfeld came to talk and showed a picture he took with his car in it, which sparked Alec’s attention because he really live the “road photographer” dream.
In all of Sleeping by the Mississippi he was drawn to a few things, which he pointed out. Beds, religious iconography, brothels, and prisons. He brought up Huck-fin a few times and related it to the river and the work. To me it seemed like this was his most passionate work even before I saw him talk, and it seems like I was right. After he showed this work he showed some stuff he shot with Magnum, The Fashion Magazine and Last Days of W (more on that later). Niagara was the obvious next work to show, skipping over all other publications including the ones I just mentioned and Dog Days Bogota. As he explained Niagara, he said he was always looking for a few things in that project as well, which turned out to be mostly Penis’, and hearts. The word he used to describe how he felt while making this work was “Miserable”. He also explained the inclusion of the love letters to operate more as something to extend the work beyond pictures, which was his big push of the night.
Alec said he often visits schools to look at work, and is usually sorely disappointed; it’s always prints on a wall. He pushed for more book making and online things in schools. I was quite happy he did this because I always felt the same way. If schools keep teaching photography as a dead medium but then continue to teach the same old fashioned ways of making pictures, how can photographers move forward? He ended the night showing some crazy videos that he has been making with a new project involving goth culture. It had the same vibe to it has the “from here to there” idea, but he says he is working through some things and will figure it out at some point. There was also some of his work done for hire but I’m not really interested in that so I won’t go into it.
Here is the part that killed me though; THE QUESTIONS! “HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT FILM VS DIGITAL?” “DO YOU TITLE YOUR OWN BOOKS?” ” WHY DO YOU INCLUDE A HINT OF SARCASM IN ALL YOUR PICTURES?” (well that one wasn’t terrible I guess) This shit kills me. I used my question to tell him to go into the library and look at the Winnogrand book Women Are Beautiful at Mass Art because it has little perverted writings under each picture. (He had brought that book up during his talk.) But really people, lets think of something better than what do you think about film vs digital!
Overall I thought he covered most of what I was interested in hearing. He spoke clearly, had some jokes, showed work no one has ever seen and at the end stayed around for an hour to sign books and talk with people, including me! So I asked him what happened to his blog? He replied that it was supposed to get him out of the business side of things, but at the end of the day, it just turned into more business so he axed it. Makes sense. He asked me to send my blog over to him and I said I might not want to do that. He then replied with “Uh oh, is there some Anti-Alec on there?” I explained that I had some issues with the Last Days of W publication and show, and he explained that it was simply a newspaper that he wanted to give out for free but it turned out to cost too much and the gallery wanted to show it so they did. Which also makes sense.
Oh yeah and New York Time’s exposed a secret project he has been working on so here is that!
I regret not getting a book signed, I don’t like to be that guy. If you can’t tell from this post, I had a good time and I’d say go to an Alec Soth talk if you ever have the chance.