Alec Soth
Fever Dream
"Balloon" is part of the Niagara series which carries a façade of sterility; the images, many of them portraits, pose the subjects in a way that creates a knowing separation to the viewer, something that prompts more questions than answers. Look at them long enough, and these images become less about the people, and more about the experience of the onlooker. Niagara is the experience of realizing that there is a moment of quiet disappointment when you realize things are not as romantic as they are created in your mind, in the mysterious space between you and the experience. Soth captures the notion that there is a particular experience in visiting a place, then often-times we realize there is an inaccessibility of that place in the time allotted, resulting in a particular experience of travel. This inaccessibility, and restrictive power, prompts a melancholy haze in Soth’s images, haunted by the iconography of love, and desire, and heartache, often times existing in the same picture—a wedding dress without a wearer, an isolated motel, a whiskey glass, half empty—all lonely, singular, and shadowed.
Balloon, 2005
chromogenic development print
32 x 40 in 81.2 x 102 cm
edition 6/7
chromogenic development print
32 x 40 in 81.2 x 102 cm
edition 6/7
