Today we go #InDetail with Alec Soth’s photograph, Monika. Warsaw, 2018.
This photograph is from a series of work #AlecSoth made for his exhibition and publication titled, I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating. Unlike previous series, which offer a more documentary account of particular locations or individuals, this body of work is far more personal.
Over the course of one-year Soth photographed individuals in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and Eastern Europe. All of the pictures are portraits of subjects taken in their own homes or interior spaces. Influenced by the openness of Peter Hujar’s photography, these sensitive images disclose a higher degree of subjectivity and intimacy than is typically found in Soth’s work. Featuring a range of subjects hitherto unknown to the artist who were introduced to him through third parties, the sitters include artists, writers and choreographers, the majority of whom the artist met on his travels.
As Soth states, “This project isn’t about geography, nationality, or other ways we conceptually try to understand each other. It’s simply about walking into another person’s room and beholding the fragile, enigmatic beauty of another person’s life.” Beguiling in their simplicity, these photographs stand as quiet meditations on the poetic mysteries unleashed from nothing more than a quiet encounter in a stranger’s room.
#AlecSoth, Monika. Warsaw, 2018, archival pigment print, framed: 55 x 45 x 2 5/8 inches @littlebrownmushroom