SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Fraenkel Gallery announces their first solo exhibition of the work of Alec Soth. On view from February 5 – April 4, 2015, Alec Soth: Songbook features approximately 20 new and never-before-seen photographs.

Celebrated for his haunting and influential portraits and landscapes in such acclaimed books as Sleeping by the Mississippi, Broken Manual, and NIAGARA, Alec Soth has recently turned his lens toward community life in the country. From 2012 to 2014 Soth traveled the United States looking for signs of social life in our era of virtual social networks. To aid in his search, Soth assumed the increasingly obsolescent role of community newspaper reporter. From upstate New York to Silicon Valley, he attended hundreds of meetings, dances, festivals and family gatherings.

With Songbook, Soth has stripped these pictures of their news context in order to highlight the longing for connection at their root. Fragmentary, funny, and sad, Songbook is a lyrical depiction of the tension between American individualism and the ongoing desire to be united.

Alec Soth (b. 1969) is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His work has been presented at numerous museums, including solo exhibitions at the Jeu de Paume, Paris; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Among his many publications are Dog Days, Bogotá; The Last Days of W; Fashion Magazine; and the LBM Dispatch series, with writer Brad Zellar.

Soth has been represented by Fraenkel Gallery since May 2013. In conjunction with his exhibition at Fraenkel Gallery, photographs from Songbook will be presented concurrently at Sean Kelly, New York, and Weinstein Gallery, Minneapolis. To accompany the exhibitions, Mack Books in London has published the hardcover book Alec Soth: Songbook, featuring 75 tritone plates.

As a complement to the exhibition, Alec Soth will post new cameraphone photos on Fraenkel Gallery’s Instagram feed (@fraenkelgallery).