A Pound of Pictures – Alec Soth

MACK

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A Pound of Pictures is a stream-of-consciousness celebration of the photographic medium, bringing together an entirely new collection of work by Alec Soth made between 2018 and 2021. Depicting a sprawling array of subjects — from Buddhist statues and birdwatchers to sun-seekers and busts of Abe Lincoln — this book reflects on the photographic desire to pin down and crystallise experience, especially as it is represented and recollected by printed images. Throughout this eclectic sequence are the recurring presences of iconography, of souvenirs and mementos, and of the image-makers that surround us day to day. Forming a winding, ruminative road trip, Soth’s photographs are followed by his own notes and reflections in an extended afterword. ‘If the pictures in this book are about anything other than their shimmering surfaces,’ he writes, ‘they are 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).’

Each book contains five randomised replica vernacular photographs loosely inserted within the pages.

Coincides with solo exhibitions at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York (opening 13 January), Weinstein Hammons Gallery, Minneapolis (28 January), and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco (3 February).

‘Alec Soth [is] the great road-tripping witness of American life … A Pound of Pictures free-associates … Connections and themes emerge. One is a sense of people searching among wasteland wildflowers for something unknown.’ The Observer

‘Staying true to Soth’s style, [A Pound of Pictures] captures the ordinariness of American life and elevate it to something poetic.’ Artnet

‘Captur[es] the odder aspects of life across both Biden’s and Trump’s America.’ The Art Newspaper

‘Combining verse with light, Soth creates sonnets, elegies and odes to American life that engage both intuition and the imagination in equal measure … A Pound of Pictures is a window into both our world and Soth’s process itself. In every photograph, there is what we see and what lies beneath.’ AnOther

‘A fragmented series of images that make up a photography book about photography itself‘ Internazionale

‘Tagging along as Soth follows his various trails of bread crumbs is a thoroughly engaging artistic experience.‘ Collector Daily

‘[An] obsessive ode to image-making ... this serendipitous approach has become Soth’s signature.’ New Yorker

156 pp, Embossed linen hardcover with front and back tip-in
Three different papers, including a marbled Japanese stock and five randomised replica vernacular photographs
Published by MACK Books, 2022
25.3 x 31 cm
English

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