“Valise” is a new exhibit by Twin Cities artist Alec Soth in the Kiehle Gallery through March 25.
The experimental exhibition, “Valise”, mixes found pictures collected by Soth with his own photographs as a means to meditate on time, chance and stories. Large scale pigment prints hang directly on the gallery walls, the largest being a panorama measuring approximately 5.5’ by 12’, along with sequences of found pictures collected by Soth over many years.
One sequence of 4” x 6” glossy prints, each taped directly to the wall, delineates the personal reflection of a woman in a mirror where her camera’s flash moves around in the compositions creating an internal universe replete with its own sun. Adjacent to this row is a single stack vintage of suitcases, the top one overflowing with pictures, which serves as a sort of monument to memory and collecting. Altogether, the exhibition picks at photography, laying bare the medium’s ability to simultaneously describe events while offering incomplete explanations.
Soth’s photobook, “Sleeping by the Mississippi” was critically acclaimed internationally and heralded an expansive and ongoing timeline of exhibitions, photobooks, workshops, performances and a multi-media storytelling enterprise. His work has been featured in over 50 solo exhibitions around the world including the Shanghai Xiang Cheng Center of Photography, Jeu de Paume in Paris, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and Media Space in London. Soth’s work was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial in New York and he has received numerous grants and fellowships including a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship. Soth lives and works in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Soth is the 2020-21 Jim and Beverly Pehler Endowment Artist-in-Residence.
