SAVANNAH, GA.- The exhibition Georgia Dispatch takes place as part of
SCAD deFINE ART 2016, the seventh annual program of fine art exhibitions, lectures, performances and public events organized by Savannah College of Art and at SCAD locations in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia and Hong Kong.
In Summer 2014, the SCAD Museum of Art sponsored "Georgia Dispatch, the seventh and final project of Alec Soths ongoing "Dispatch" series (20112014) during a two-week, 2,400-mile excursion through rural and urban Georgia. The "Dispatch" series began in 2011 when Soth and writer Brad Zellar journeyed across Ohio masquerading as small-town newspaper beat reporters, covering day-to-day happenings along their trek. The exhibition features a selection of Soths documentary photography from a variety of stops on their journey. From Bradley Lock and Key Shop in coastal Savannah, Georgia, to BabyLand General Hospital, the Cabbage Patch Kids adoption center in Cleveland, Georgia, these photographs create an engaging time-lapse portrait of Georgias past and present.
This exhibition is curated by Alexandra Sachs, executive director of SCAD FASH and SCAD Atlanta exhibitions, with support from Storm Janse van Rensburg, SCAD head curator of exhibitions in Savannah.
Alec Soth was born in 1969 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He studied at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. Soth received international acclaim when his photographs were featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the 2004 Whitney and São Paulo Biennials.
Soth's photographic style has continued to develop in subsequent series beginning with his iconic Sleeping by the Mississippi, and including NIAGARA, The Last Days of W and Broken Manual. Soth uses his large format camera to photograph the people and landscapes of suburban and rural communities, often during road trips throughout the Midwest and the South.
Soths photographs have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions. In 2008, a large survey exhibition of Soth's work was exhibited at the Jeu de Paume in Paris, France and Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland. In 2010, the Walker Art Center mounted a comprehensive exhibition with an accompanying catalogue entitled From Here To There, Alec Soths America. His first monograph, Sleeping by the Mississippi, was published by Steidl in 2004 to critical acclaim. Since then Soth has published NIAGARA (2006), Fashion Magazine (2007), Dog Days, Bogotá (2007), The Last Days of W (2008), and Broken Manual (2010). In 2008, Soth started his own publishing company, Little Brown Mushroom.
His work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, to name a few. Soth is also a member of Magnum Photos.