Arcana:

(SOTH, ALEC). Soth, Alec, Aaron Schuman & Kate Bush. London: MACK, 2015. First Edition. 4to. Wrappers in Decorative Box. Photography Monograph. As New./No Jackets - As Issued.. np, profusely illustrated in color and b&w. Designed by Lewis Chaplin. "Alec Soth's reputation as one of the leading lights of contemporary photographic practice is largely predicated on the books he has published. This unusual catalogue accompanies a 2015 touring exhibition which uses the four major bodies of work which Soth has published as books since 2004 as the structural basis for both a mid-career retrospective and an investigation of Soth's prescient understanding of the various and distinct applications of photography as a tool for storytelling across diverse media. The title of the exhibition comes from Walt Whitman's poem 1855 "Song of Myself" and references both the pages of his books gathered for consideration, and the notion that his work is also a story about Soth himself. This catalogue is a special object, bringing together an essay by Aaron Schuman spread across twenty-nine large format postcards, an additional card printed with an introduction by Kate Bush - curator of the exhibition and the director of Media Space, London, with mini facsimile versions of Soth's "Sleeping by the Mississippi", "Niagara", "Broken Manual", and "Songbook". A brand new, most handsome example of the now unavailable first edition (cited on page 260 of Fred Ritchin and Carole Naggar's "Magnum Photobook: A Catalogue Raisonné") additionally BOLDLY SIGNED AND DATED "Alec Soth / 2015" in black ink in the year of publication on the inside front cover of its decorative box. 1-910164-36-4 Inventory Number: 025273