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Charles, Vasa, Minnesota

Alec Soth

Photography

Alec Soth creates a visual record of America. In his series Sleeping by the Mississippi, he depicts not only the people and places that make up life along the river, but also the shift in culture as the river flows from north to south. Soth presents these photographs as a fragmented narrative, a rambling sequence of images similar to the flow of dream imagery or the currents of the unconscious. With his interest in the representation of the United States and its inhabitants, his portraits express a wide range of feelings, from pride to loneliness and vulnerability.

This image shows a man bundled in workman’s clothes against a bleak rural landscape; he presents model airplanes to the viewer, as if explaining a project. With its implicit references to the iconic American aviator Charles Lindbergh (whose unassuming boyhood bed is shown in another photograph in the group) and to the very idea of America (in the colors and emblematic stars and stripes on one of the planes), the image is both an intimate, personal portrait of a man and his toys and a link to the rest of the series.
MEDIUM Chromogenic print
DATES 2002
DIMENSIONS 50 x 40 in. (127 x 101.6 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Signed, numbered, titled and dated on label, verso
COLLECTIONS Photography
ACCESSION NUMBER 2004.67
CREDIT LINE Gift of Yossi Milo and Evan Smoak
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Alec Soth (American, born 1969). Charles, Vasa, Minnesota, 2002. Chromogenic print, 50 x 40 in. (127 x 101.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Yossi Milo and Evan Smoak, 2004.67. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Photograph courtesy of Yossi Milo Gallery, CUR.2004.67_Yossi_Milo_Gallery_photo.jpg)
EDITION Edition: Museum print, ?/5, 2 APs, 2 MPs
IMAGE overall, CUR.2004.67_Yossi_Milo_Gallery_photo.jpg. Photograph courtesy of Yossi Milo Gallery, 2008
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT © Alec Soth
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