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).
Alec Soth (b. 1969) is a Magnum Photos photographer born and based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has published over twenty-five books including Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004), Niagara (2006), Broken Manual (2010), Songbook (2015), and I Know Furiously Your Heart Is Beating (2019). Soth has had over fifty solo exhibitions including survey shows organised by Jeu de Paume in Paris (2008), the Walker Art Center in Minnesota (2010), Media Space in London (2015), and FotoMuseum in Antwerp (2017). Soth has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2013).
The book release 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 : A Pound of Pictures
MACK Books
Embossed linen hardcover with front and back tip-in
Three different papers, including a marbled Japanese stock
25.3 x 31 cm, 156 pages
€70 £55 $75
Each book contains five randomised vernacular photographs loosely inserted within the pages
ISBN 978-1-913620-11-0
https://www.mackbooks.us/products/a-pound-of-pictures-br-alec-soth
