Untitled is from the Perfect Stranger series 1994
Bill, Sandusky, Ohio is an excerpt from the Songbook series 2012
Chula Vista, California is an excerpt from the Last Days of W series 2008
Rebecca is an excerpt from the Niagara series 2005
Patrick, Brown Branch Sunday, Baton Rouge, Louisiana is an excerpt from the Sleep on the Mississippi River series 2002
2008_02zl0189 is an excerpt from the Broken Handbook series 2008
Leon, Berlin is an excerpt from the 2018 series I Know How Hard Your Heart Beats
Vince, New York is an excerpt from the 2018 series I Know How Hard Your Heart Beats
◎Houshang
Exhibition: Me and You: Eric Soth
Duration: 2022.1.1-3.6
Venue: Three Shadows Photography Art Center
The best light appears before the evening. The same goes for photography. The photography is distributed on a thread of 86164 seconds a day, and the best light is probably only a few seconds, tens of seconds. Precious time is rare, much less lasting, and only good photography can record it as it is.
In 1999, Eric Soth, who was still working at the Minneapolis Museum of Art, embarked on a three-month sabbatical to practice a travel program. Just before the trip began, Soth's mother-in-law entered a period of hospice care. Soth first shelved his travel plans, accompanied his family, and lived the last days of his mother-in-law's life. Before the traces of death had been erased, Soth embarked on a journey in his minivan, down the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to the Mississippi Delta in the Gulf of Mexico, accompanied by an 8×10 Phillips large-format camera. The situation is 150 years apart from Huckleberry Finn. Finn picked up his oar and floated over the Mississippi River, while Soth was on the shore, galloping at high speed.
Road photography
The tradition of "road photography" is very long, it is the result of a combination of the photographic community, the automobile civilization, and the media coverage, and its origins can be traced back to 1860 to 1885. In the history of 20th-century photography, road photography has left many nodal classics, in order: Evans's "American Photograph" (1938, 1940), Frank's "American" (1958), and Shore's "Unusual Place" (1982).
Among them, Shore is the idol of Soth and the source of his photographic concept. Soth called Shore a "highly reflective window photographer." The word window photographer, word for John Sarkovsky. Comparing Frank with Shore shows Soth's pursuit and belief in the art of photography. Frank's perspective is sharp and forcefully involved, the public objects in the lens are great and silent, and the characters are full of emotion and overflowing. In contrast, Shore, modeled after Andy Warhol, deconstructs the depth of existence, and his lens is always obsessed with specific beings and the "otherness" they present.
In the 1970s, Shore traveled through the United States with a large-format camera. "I always felt like an explorer, and I was interested not only in bringing my values to other parts of the country, but also in seeing what was going on in those places," Shore said, "and whenever I get in the car and start a journey like this, I always enjoy driving on a road for days in a row." "His Unusual Places are filled with highly modern mediums and objects. Time is humorously twisted to a halt, leaving the viewer with only the boundless architecture and the satisfied peace of the times.
Fast forward to the end of the century, the beginning of the century, and Soth did the same thing. During his first trip, Soth came to charles Lindbergh's former home. Lindbergh was the first pilot in history to fly across the Atlantic. What attracted Soth was nothing else, But Lindbergh's iron bed, which had become moldy and spotted over the years. Soth gently entered and allowed the bed to collapse from the center of the frame to the bottom of the frame. On his first trip, Soth didn't get many of his best works, and it seems that only this one was included in the "Sleeping in Mississippi" series, published in 2004, Soth's first photographic book, and Soth became famous.
"Time and time again, my eyes were wide open and I was drowsy, and I knew I was going to fall asleep, and I couldn't stop it. When I was so asleep, my eyes left my ordinary brain as if they were closed, but they were directly connected to this novel, extraordinary brain, which was more and more able to face their impressions..." Sleep and bed, henceforth became the key word in the Mississippi trip. Its counterpart is the loss and silence of the United States around the turn of the millennium, followed by the nostalgia of the New World to the Old World. Compared with the era of Evans and Shore, the new era, the individual is fragmented, and the individual is absent.
During his trip in 2002, Soth was very rewarding. Trees from John Cash's hometown, the American flag on the river bushes, low beds full of ornaments, Fountain City Cemetery, lemon boards, giant crosses, brown sofas in candy houses, red curtains at Jimmy's house... The most widely spread was Charles, the second pilot of the project. Charles, dressed in a pilot's uniform, is preparing to take Soth into his warehouse where model airplanes and rescue supplies are stored. Thors captured the moment. The picture tells us that it retreats in composition, that it does not contain all the parts; that it withdraws in meaning, that it blurs the object it wants to present. For example, what do we think when we see Charles with a model airplane? What do we dream through the picture? It is ambiguous and rich. By disrupting and gathering, Soth reveals a secret of viewing.
Create at home
Soth is not a thorough travel photographer, though. For him, at home and on the road, are two parallel ways of creating. "Is that kind of life like traveling long distances, driving around, using gasoline, flying around, spreading concepts everywhere, etc., really the best way in the world?" That's why I admire photographers who work from home who can tell us how to observe their own lives. Soth had said. In 2019, "I Know How Hard Your Heart Beats" is his new experiment based on being at home and on the road.
"I Know How Hard Your Heart Beats" also symbolizes breaking the ice after years of silence. In 2015, Soth bought a farmhouse and set up his own studio. In order to cope with the bad situation, Sothe tried to quit drinking, meditate, meditate, watch the light pass through the walls, make sculptures, and videotap. He realized that photography might have stripped him of the world, and meditation changed that detachment. Why does he think photography interferes with himself? What has photography been since the establishment of Daguerre photography? What has photography been since advertising and media went viral? What has photography been since the invasion of social media? In fact, photography is mostly a product of mechanical reproduction, but also a product of the Renaissance and perspective. But authentic photography is far from it. And that's where photography and Zen combine.
"What exactly can a photograph tell us, especially a photograph of a person?" With this simple and pure question, Soth began his project. As if cleaning his mouth and awakening his taste buds, Soth revived the entire system. As Soth puts it, "When I return to the world of photography, I want to strip away the rest of the medium and go to the most important elements." I just want to simply look at other people and see their inner lives, rather than repeating an epic narrative of America. I have only one goal: to put time on another beating heart. ”
The most dazzling work of the whole project is the photograph of the artist Anna Haplin. Haplin is one of the most important modern dancers, and his most important work is the Dance of the Planets. Through the superimposed layer of light between glass and tree vines, we can glimpse a green-clad Haplin. Living in the lower middle of the picture, Harprin looks flexibly and attentively at the huge camera, surrounded by wooden furniture, paintings on the fireplace, and windows that open to nature. The picture is chaotic, clear and rich, full of innocence and optimism. In this project, Soth is obviously more concerned with the layers of color, primitiveness, sense of life, the interspersing, coercion, and inner nature of space, as well as the composite, derivative, and historical meaning of the medium. Of course, it's global, and all of these images bring together stories from all over the world, including Salt Lake City, Berlin, Odessa, Bucharest, Warsaw, Toulouse, New York, London, and more.
It is worth noting that Soth's shooting method just matches his large-format camera. The 8× 10-inch large-format camera depicts the world with unparalleled precision, but it's slow and detailed, requiring long schedules. As Soth drills into the blanket, looks at the panel, and adjusts the lens, the object must remain stationary for a long time. "It's beautiful under the blanket," Says Soth, "and when you adjust the plane of focus, you can gaze closely at a person's eyebrows." Then, the whole world suddenly turned upside down! I'm grappling with the technical challenges that create this wonderful and intense energy... I'm still leading the dance, but I'm no longer forcing people to dance with me. "Overall, the large-format camera presents a mixed but sculptural texture that gives the viewer a dreamlike feeling, as if everything is shining.
This project also made Soth aware of the fun and charm of getting along with people. Every time he comes into contact with a stranger, or a subject, the introverted Soth needs to be full of anticipation and anticipation, and he cannot predict in advance who will appear and what will happen. Entering the scene to be filmed, Soth will understand the things everywhere, the state of the person, the overall environment. During the shooting, Soth wouldn't give extra instructions, he would gently signal, "A little to the right, a little to the left, just grin and don't move." As he puts it, "In the process of filming, I described them not only as an individual, but also as a space of objectivity and subject matter, and I hoped that this picture would then give a clear and dreamlike feeling, which could not be fully understood, but like a dream that contained all its meanings." ”
"I Know How Hard Your Heart Beats" is from a wallace Stevens poem, "Even though you're sitting in a gray room... I know how violently your heart beats. "This poem is stevens' early work, and it is suppressed and exaggerated, amplifying the author's sensibility and dreams to the extreme." Nowadays I get more inspiration from poetry, film, literature, just as I used to get inspiration from photography. Poetry is like a torrent to me, and I'm willing to immerse myself in the river, but I don't find a work of poetry that I can indulge enough to intoxicate. Soth said.
Documentary photography
Soth was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to a lawyer father and an interior designer mother. Sade grew up introverted, and with his family living in the suburbs, he grew up almost alone and rarely traveled. In the tenth grade, an art professor tapped into Soth's potential and encouraged him to become an artist. Since the 1970s, Minnesota's "Twin Cities" creative industry has continued to grow, and most of the state's artist centers have risen in the national rankings, including writers' groups and publishing. These art centers generally charge a small membership fee and are open to everyone, which helps novices learn art techniques from experts or develop business acumen. In 1989, the Minnesota Center of Photography was founded. The Minneapolis Museum of Art, which Soth has long served, is now one of the largest art museums in the United States.
Later, Soth enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College under Joel Sternfield, whose photographic aesthetic was subtly influenced by this mentor. During his time at Sarah Lawrence College, Soth tried a trip to Mississippi on a small scale and took a large number of private photographs of his relatives, primarily his mother-in-law. Leaving school and returning to Minnesota, Soth tries to reach out to strangers and deal with things related to strangers. Soth has completed two projects in bars, parks and other places: "Perfect Stranger" and "Looking for Love". At this time, Soth had not yet established his own style, except for the photograph of the man carrying three suitcases. Between shots, the man said to Soth, "I'm one of the smartest people of my time." ”
After Sleeping in Mississippi, Soth embarked on another similar project, Niagara. Niagara Falls is known as a honeymoon resort and a suicide resort, and Soth is here to greet these couples, couples and those who commit suicide. Fragility, splendor, nakedness, loneliness pervade the entire project. The couples lay on the grass, their bodies crossed like a heart; the newlywed girl, dressed in a wedding dress, almost floated in mid-air. The love letters mixed in the album push the sorrow of love and life to the extreme.
In 2004, Soth quit his job at the Minneapolis Museum of Art and joined Magnum Pictures four years later. Perhaps inevitably, Soth was finally able to publicly declare his "documentary style" and become a professional photographer at the same time. Photojournalism and documentary photography have since become one of the core contents of Soth. In 2010, Soth and Brad Zelar founded Little Brown Mushroom Press. Between 2012 and 2014, they traveled five states and published seven copies of the Mushroom News. During this time, Soth did everything journalists and researchers needed to do. In the end, they were compiled into the Songbook. In addition, Soth's important work project is the Broken Handbook.
"I don't think there's any power to tell a story, but war stories can make me into intense pain, and I prefer to focus on the ordinary and unobtrusive everyday life, which can help me realize these ideas," Soth said. ”
Soth had a deep influence on Chinese photography. Since 2004, many Chinese photographers have followed suit, with Chen Ronghui perhaps the most famous. From 2016 to 2019, Chen Ronghui took a large-format camera and trekked through the three northeastern provinces, recording the style of this era.