Signed, Alec Soth - I Know How Furiously Your Heart is Beating - 2019

Taking its name from a line in Wallace Stevens' poem 'The Grey Room,' Alec Soth's latest book is a lyrical exploration of the limits of photographic representation. Although these large-format color photographs are taken all over the world, they do not focus on a specific place or population. Through a process of intimate and often extended engagement, Soth's portraits and images of the environment surrounding his subject imply an investigation into how much a photographic likeness can represent more than just the external surface of an individual, and perhaps even probe the depths of something unknowable about both the subject and the photographer.

When I returned to photography, I wanted to strip the medium down to its basic elements. Rather than trying to create some kind of epic narrative about America, I simply wanted to pass the time watching other people and, hopefully, catching a brief glimpse of their inner lives.