Advice For Young Artists | Alec Soth

Soth’s highly anticipated new body of work, Advice for Young Artists, stems from his visits to numerous undergraduate art programs across the United States between 2022 and 2024. Contrary to what the title suggests, rather than offering straightforward wisdom, Soth presents an introspective and unresolved exploration of the art-making process at different stages of life. Advice For Young Artists contemplates the relationship between photography, time, and aging, with images that range from formal classroom studies to more expressive compositions. This body of work marks an evolution in Soth’s practice, offering a fresh perspective two decades after the release of his acclaimed series Sleeping by the Mississippi. 

Widely regarded as one of the most compelling visual storytellers of our time, Alec Soth has built a career guided by research, happenstance, and curiosity. His work often explores themes of isolation and the longing for connection, capturing the essence of the human experience in ways that resonate deeply with viewers, critics, and fellow artists alike. With Advice for Young Artists, Soth continues to inspire, challenge, and move audiences worldwide, reaffirming his status as a pivotal figure in contemporary art.

About the Artist:

Alec Soth (b. 1969)  lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has published over twenty-five books, including his first critically acclaimed monograph, Sleeping by the Mississippi, in 2004. He has gone on to publish titles such as NIAGARA (2006), Fashion Magazine (2007), Dog Days, Bogotá (2007), The Last Days of W (2008), Broken Manual (2010), Songbook (2015), Gathered Leaves (2015) I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating (2019), A Pound of Pictures (2022), and most recently Advice For Young Artists (2024). In 2008 Soth started his own publishing company, Little Brown Mushroom, which is based in Minnesota. Soth’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at international museums including the Deichtorhallen Internationale Kunst und Fotografie, Hamburg; the National Media Museum, Bradford, UK; The Finnish Museum, Helsinki; El museo de Bogotá, Colombia; the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; and the Jeu de Paume, Paris. His work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; 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; Minneapolis Institute of Art; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 12pm-5pm, and by appointment.

Image: (Detail) Lauren's Books, 2023, archival pigment print, 40 x 50 inches, image size, 45 x 55 inches, paper size, edition of 9 plus 4 artist's proofs.