26 REDS & A BOTTLE OF WINE

Alec Soth's photography exhibit "Niagara" opened this weekend at the Gagosian. Mr. Soth has collected a series of shots taken up by the Falls. There are some amazing shots of the Falls itself and also some startling shots of the anonymous motel that sprinkle the town. These are amazingly still and moribund. I don't know, something about the disposable nature of it all, love, life and lawn furniture. I don't know. But there were also these shot of couples at the Falls. A fat couple on a couch, an awkward groom. This stuff has the air of self-importance, as if Mr. Soth had discovered something poetic and brilliant in the social bankruptcy of the human experience. When in fact Mr. Soth is simply playing into the more bullyish, mean spirited tendencies of an art scene obsessed with pointing out the short comings of their perceived lessers. Endless young trust fund motherfuckers eager to slum it in the hopes of photographing the fat, the poor and the slovenly, like endangered white rhinos to be carded back to New York galleries. There they can be fawned over by faggots in tortoise rimmed glasses as curiosities. I've seen this shit in every gallery in the city this year and the paperwork all reads like this (from the Gagosian's Alec Soth show)

“Soth's photographs resonate with the paradoxical expressions of beauty and poverty, anonymity and familiarity, and, above all, individuality and a collective consciousness. Soth cites a quote by Charles Lindbergh, written mid-transatlantic flight in his memoir, "The Spirit of St. Louis", as the basis for his own creative process:

‘Over and over again I fall asleep with my eyes open, knowing I'm falling asleep, unable to prevent it. When I fall asleep this way, my eyes are cut off from my ordinary mind as though they were shut, but they become directly connected to this new, extraordinary mind, which grows increasingly competent to deal with their impressions. ‘”

Bullshit! You're making fun of people you think you are better than, and worse, your doing it to make yourself famous. And quoting a nazi isn't going to help.

The shots of the falls are nice.

PS – I have no evidence that Mr. Soth is a trust fund motherfucker. I was generalizing.