Alec Soth: Dog Days, Bogota

Alec Soth's work in "Dog Days, Bogota" is heartbreakingly lonely. When there are human subjects in his pieces, they are usually alone and rarely looking at the camera. More often, his subjects are random objects, interiors, and desolate streets and alleys wherein even the dogs, chickens, and pet rabbits look away from the camera. Untitled 32 is of a bedroom window half-covered in a filmy curtain above a nightstand with a bare-bulb lamp. From a distance, the rectangular shapes jutting out of the top of the bare white wall in Untitled 25 could be the buildings of a distant skyline. Upon close inspection, it is clear that they are shards of broken glass. In the artist's statement, Soth explains that his collection is an attempt to document "some of the beauty in this hard place," his adoptive daughter's birthplace. Indeed, Soth manages to capture a certain beauty in the stark landscape.
Nov. 16-Jan. 5, 2007