Alec Soth

Sociotopographical Chronicles and Lyrical Documentarism in the Work of Alec Soth

The US photographer Alec Soth (born 1969 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is a full member of the renowned Magnum Photos agency and one of the most influential voices in contemporary international photography. Positioned within the art-historical tradition of Robert Frank, Stephen Shore, and Walker Evans, his oeuvre is dedicated to a profound, epic mapping of North America's social and societal landscapes. Soth's lyrical documentarism, which frequently relies on an analog large-format camera, captures with exceptional sensitivity the daily lives, spiritual longings, and melancholy of individuals on the fringes of society. His subtle portraits and topographical landscapes function as visual analyses of the American promise and its real-world fractures, placing him alongside pioneering chroniclers of socio-cultural reality such as Michael Schmidt.

TWO RIVERS. Joachim Brohm / Alec Soth

A major milestone in exploring this contemporary visual language and its European-American interrelations was the groundbreaking exhibition project "Two Rivers," which was presented as a world premiere at the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf from March 29 to July 7, 2019. Conceived and curated by Ralph Goertz, Director of the IKS (Institute for Art Documentation and Scenography), the exhibition brought together the most significant photographic bodies of work by Alec Soth and the German photo artist Joachim Brohm. At the epicenter of this intertextual dialogue stood two epochal river landscape studies: Soth's masterful magnum opus "Sleeping by the Mississippi" (2000–2004) and Brohm's internationally acclaimed series "Ruhr" (1980–1983), which was created at the Folkwang University of the Arts. In both cycles, both artists focus on the lifeworlds of people inhabiting the coastal peripheries of these respective currents. This juxtaposition at the NRW-Forum was flanked by other corresponding series, including "Songbook" and "Niagara" by Soth, as well as "Ohio," "Dessau Files," and the premier presentation of the portrait series "Flash Ohio" by Brohm. Through this international comparison, the exhibition revealed how differing economic and geographical environments shape leisure culture, architecture, and collective consciousness.

The procedural background and conceptual methodology of Alec Soth were intensively filmed and documented during this curatorial process. The resulting documentary film, "Alec Soth - New American Photography" (running time: 32 minutes), directed by Ralph Goertz, offers the field of art history profound insights into Soth's artistic practice, his theoretical self-understanding, and the genesis of his most important photographic series. This contemporary film document, which deconstructs the dense relationship between landscape expanse and individual isolation, is now digitally accessible worldwide on the Vimeo platform, making it available for public viewing and academic research in contemporary photography history.

Watch the film!

photos: Ralph Goertz