Alec Soth: I Know How Furiously Your Heart is Beating

From March 23 through May 11, 2019, Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present new color photographs by Alec Soth, coinciding with the release of his book I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating, published by MACK. The exhibition marks a shift towards a stripped down, connection-driven approach to photography that Soth began exploring during his 2017 FraenkelLAB residency.

Taking its name from a line in Wallace Stevens’ poem “The Gray Room,” the project investigates the possibilities and limitations of what photographs can convey about the inner lives of their subjects. Often the result of extended engagements with the people he photographs, the large-scale portraits and interiors were made in the U.S. and Europe, and often depict artists, writers and choreographers, among others. Intimate and quiet, the images reveal something otherwise unknowable about both the sitter and the photographer. Soth commented:

“After the publication of my last book about social life in America, Songbook, and a retrospective of my four, large scale American projects, Gathered Leaves, I went through a long period of rethinking my creative process. For over a year I stopped traveling and photographing people. I barely took any pictures at all.

When I returned to photography, I wanted to strip the medium down to its primary elements. Rather than trying to make some sort of epic narrative about America, I wanted to simply spend time looking at other people and, hopefully, briefly glimpse their interior life.

In order to try and access these lives, I made all of the photographs in interior spaces. While these rooms often exist in far-flung places, it’s only to emphasize that these pictures aren’t about any place in particular. Whether a picture is made in Odessa or Minneapolis, my goal was the same: to simply spend time in the presence of another beating heart.”

I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating will have concurrent presentations at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, from March 21 to April 27, 2019; Weinstein Hammons Gallery, Minneapolis, from March 15 to May 4, 2019; and Loock Galerie, Berlin, from March 15 to April 18, 2019.

Alec Soth (b. 1969) is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His photographs have been featured in numerous exhibitions, including solo survey shows organized by Jeu de Paume, Paris; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and MediaSpace, London. In 2008, Soth created Little Brown Mushroom, a multi-media enterprise focused on visual storytelling. His work is in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and many other institutions. The artist’s monographs include Sleeping by the Mississippi; NIAGARA; The Last Days of W; Broken Manual; Gathered Leaves and Songbook. Soth has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013. He is a member of Magnum Photos.