ALEC SOTH, Patrick, Palm Sunday, Baton Rouge, Louis

Patrick, Palm Sunday, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 2002
Color coupler print, printed 2006. 49 1/2 x 39 1/2 in. (125.7 x 100.3 cm). Signed, titled, dated '2006' and numbered AP 1/2 in ink on a label affixed to the reverse of the aluminum flush-mount. One from an edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs.
PROVENANCE Weinstein Gallery, Minneapolis
LITERATURE Klochko, Picturing Eden, p. 77; Steidl, Sleeping by the Mississippi: Photographs by Alec Soth, pl. 41

For nearly a century, the American social landscape has been widely explored, dissected and revealed, sometimes with a loving eye, sometimes with a critical eye, but rarely with an objective eye, such as Alec Soth's, that somehow balances both. Patrick, Palm Sunday, Baton Rouge, Louisiana is part of Soth's five-year body of work, Sleeping on the Mississippi, in which the famed photographer formed an unassuming cross-section of the demographic diversity running along the river. Layers of strata, rocks, soil and flora are replaced by socio-cultural signifiers such as race, dress, personal space, and as we see in this image, religious practices. The resulting image is not a critique of, nor an homage to the religious ceremony. Rather, it is an understated acknowledgement of its existence—and importance, in creating a revised perception of the kaleidoscopic American panorama.