Sleeping by the Mississippi
Alec Soth has a wonderful and terrifying eye. We've all seen gritty documentary photography, but no one has ever seen anything like his work! It's gritty for sure, but it's beautiful—really beautiful. With most documentary photography, you look at it, sigh, and pass on, but Soth's work keeps pulling you back to look again because he composes with the skill of the greatest of photographic artists; he's unafraid of humor and irony, which are impossible to leave out of any authentic American vision; and he uses color as an integral part of his composition—and that is not to say he photographs in color, which is all most color photographers do, but that his colors are as important as the objects, the people, and the things he captures. He is a brilliant new talent and Sleeping by the Mississippi is an important book.
JOHN WOOD, Editor 21st: The Journal of Contemporary Photography
About Alec Soth
Alec Soth (b. 1969) is a photographer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has received fellowships from the McKnight and Jerome Foundations and was the recipient of the 2003 Santa Fe Prize for Photography. His photographs are in major public and private collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the Walker Art Center. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the 2004 Whitney Biennial. His first book, Sleeping by the Mississippi, was published by Steidl in 2004. Soth has photographed for The New York Times Magazine, Fortune and Newsweek. In 2004, he became a nominee of Magnum Photos.