After viewing both Alec Soth and Frank Relle's work it was easy to see their unique ideas in approaching a concept.
It appeared to me initially that Soth was fully exploring a place. Through images of the nature surrounding that place, the man made places within it, objects from it and people that interacted with it. That being said, it also had the feeling that viewer was traveling with the artist, and that each difference scene we were shown was another aspect of the trip.
His way of exploring a concept is not linear. He seems to take an idea, and then explore anything and everything associated with that central point. This is a little more apparent in some of his other series' I looked at.
While this way of approaching an idea helps one to explore all the possibilities it can be, it leaves out a sense of continuity in the presentation. Besides the fact that all of the images (the ones that aren't black and white that is) are shown with very muted colors and sometimes light that is rather flat, there is very little visually to tie one image to the next.
Frank Relle's images are the exact opposite of this method. His images are directly tied to one another visually, both through color and composition. There is obviously a concept to the work, but it doesn't appear to go much deeper than the place the buildings are at. Otherwise, all that ties them together is the aesthetics.
This isn't to say that Relle didn't think about other ways for them to be tied together conceptually, or that Soth didn't carefully consider the positioning and exposure of each image. Its simply how they chose to present it, and which final images they used that make each series what it is, and thus allow me to interpret them as I have.
Mel
I think what's interesting about Alec Soth's work is that it seems random and arbitrary but actually has a structure and the order serves a purpose. I don't know if you went to his lecture or not that he did sometime last year, but to hear him talk about his work is really interesting because it seems as if he doesn't realize that the work comes across as scattered.
ReplyDeleteI do see your point though, especially because this series is so big. I think that's also my thought with Frank Relles work, that there are so many images, and with his work the aesthetic similarities are so strong the work is very monotonous.