Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Artist
Alec Soth
American, born 1969
Date2002
MediumChromogenic print
Dimensions16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Frame: 24 x 27 1/2 in. (61 x 69.9 cm)
Frame: 24 x 27 1/2 in. (61 x 69.9 cm)
ClassificationsPhotography
Credit LineGift of Allen G. Thomas Jr. in honor of Lawrence J. Wheeler
Object number2014.14.53
On View
Not on viewSoth traveled the length of the Mississippi River, from Minnesota to Louisiana, over four years to create Sleeping by the Mississippi, a compelling body of work that features a place, the people who live there, and the passage of time. While he rarely focuses on the river itself, Soth links the vastness of the Mississippi with recurring imagery: isolated people, empty rooms, and spare landscapes. The images, especially when contemplated as a unified series, evoke loneliness and isolation as well as possibility and intimacy—sometimes all in one frame.
[L. Dougherty, 2012]ProvenanceCreated Cape Girardeau, MO, 2002; collection of the artist, Minneapolis; [Yossi Milo Gallery, New York]; Allen G. Thomas Jr., Wilson, NC, ca. 2003–2004; given to NCMA, 2014.
Published ReferencesAlec Soth, Alec Soth: Sleeping by the Mississippi (Göttingen: Steidl, 2004), illus. (color) 28.
Alex Soth’s America, Siri Engberg, ed. (exhibition catalogue) (Minneapolis: Walter Art Center, 2010), illus. (color) 53.
Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Wanderlust: Photography by Alec Soth," December 23, 2012-June 30, 2013.
Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Within the Frame,” February 16–July 21, 2019.
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