Alec Soth is considered one of the most important representatives of documentary photography today. The exhibition Gathered Leaves in the Kunstfoyer Munich, from 3 May to 24 July 2022, provides a deep insight into the work of the Magnum photographer in a comprehensive show with around 90 works, publications, and accompanying drafts.

The British daily newspaper “The Telegraph” considers Alec Soth to be America’s greatest living photographer of social and geographical landscapes. Soth thus follows in the tradition of Robert Frank, Stephen Shore or Joel Sternfeld. In numerous international solo and group exhibitions, Alec Soth has already enthused a broad public.

In the Kunstfoyer, the five characteristic series “Sleeping by the Mississippi” (2004). “Niagara” (2006), “Broken Manual” (2010), “Songbook” (2014) and “A Pound of Pictures” (2022) will be presented.
The physical landscapes of his native USA – the majestic Mississippi, the thundering Niagara Falls, the wide-open deserts and pristine areas, the small towns and urban fringes – form the structure and setting of his poetic studies of American life. The subjects of Alec Soth’s works are the American ideals of independence, freedom, spirituality and individuality, which the photographer expresses in everyday scenes. The essence of the human being always remains the central aspect of his intimate portraits of lui, his trained eye of lui is directed at the story behind the visual narrative-at human emotions, personal destinies, and longings. In doing so, Soth always follows his aesthetic approach by lui: “to me the most beautiful thing is vulnerability”.

Alec Soth is a visual artist, Magnum photojournalist, blogger, self-publisher, Instagrammer and educator. He lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In addition to numerous other prizes and fellowships, Alec Soth received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013. His works are also represented in outstanding collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The exhibition is a cooperation with Magnum Photos. Kunstfoyer Munich is expected to be the last stop on an international tour that has taken in the Media Space at the Science Museum and the National Media Museum (both London), the Finnish Museum of Photography (Helsinki), the Foto Museum in Antwerp and the Haus der Fotografie in Hamburg. In Munich, it will be expanded to include the latest series, A Pound of Pictures (2022).
Gathered Leaves will be held also in Japan from June 25, 2022 to October 10, 2022 at The Museum of Modern Art, Hayama. An exhibition of the same title ranging from his early works to his latest and composed of five best-known series treating America as the theme. However, here, the connection between image and concept is explored through a selection of works chosen exclusively for Japan.

To accompany the exhibition, the catalogue Gathered Leaves Annotated. Alec Soth’s latest publication will be published by MACK: following on from the bestselling box set Gathered Leaves, this unique publication brings together five of Soth’s major books in their entirety in a single, compact, and densely detailed volume. Across more than 700 pages of newsprint, Soth updates and reimagines the original version of Gathered Leaves by reproducing every spread from these five books with detailed annotations in the form of notes, text extracts, and additional photographs. This new roadmap through Soth’s oeuvre also includes a new introduction by the artist.

Interview with Alec Soth of ASX during the exhibition “Gathered Leaves” in 2016 in the UK.