2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

January 25, 2021

Behind Alec Soth andDave King's AudioVisual Performance:
The Palms
A revelatory documentary photographer
and revered jazz drummer walk into apandemic. A live (virtual) symphonicslideshow of found photos ensues.
by Steve Marsh3

https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

1/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

Photographs Courtesy of Alec Soth
Musician Dave King catches photographer Alec Soth practicing poorsocial distancing red-handed.

The pandemic has been hard on everybody, but
especially the loners. Take the photographer Alec Soth,who made his name with his 2004 photo book, Sleeping
by the Mississippi, and who continues to create art as
the consummate wanderer whose process is centeredaround convincing strangers all over the country toallow him to take their portraits. Even a rugged
individualist like Soth has felt emotionally underequipped for this.
“Even talking on Zoom and stuff,” he says, when I reachhim via Zoom. “Initially, talking into this emptiness was
hard for me.”But through wonderfully humane serendipity, justbefore lockdown, Soth found a new collaborator: Dave
King, the drummer for Minneapolis jazz groups The
Bad Plus and Happy Apple. (He’s also on the Zoom.)
Fast-forward through most of the pandemic, and later
this month, Soth and King are dropping the fruits of
their labor: The Palms, a novel audio-visualperformance piece, at The Great Northern<https://thegreatnorthernfestival.com/> festival.
https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

2/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

The name is a reference to the long-gone Persian Palms
nightclub in downtown Minneapolis. A while back, Sothcame across a 1950s photo from outside the Persian
Palms shot by the New York crime photographer
Weegee, and it captured his imagination. Soth started
researching the old nightclub, and its regular acts, andeventually thought “Dave and Alec’s musical pictureshow” could fit on a bill.
King, for his part, has gone from playing 200 dates out
on the road every year to making the instant COVID
transition to stay-at-home dad and Zoom drum
instructor.
“For me, it goes in waves,” he says. “I go from feelingdesperately lost for a purpose to ‘I’m still a good dad.’”He says he very much welcomed the opportunity tocollaborate with an artist on Soth’s level. And Soth, inturn, says that for a couple of mid-career artists likethemselves, it’s refreshing to not know exactly what
they’re doing.

“We’re figuring it out,” he says. “So much of art is likechildren playing, and to get to that non-cynical place
where we’re safe and we feel like we can do this
together and we’re not going to beat each other up.”https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

3/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

So you guys committed to the project around
March of last year, right before COVID?
Soth: It was pre-COVID for sure. I know that [festival
executive director] Kate Nordstrum talked to me about
The Great Northern much earlier. And I was a busy
person, and everyone’s busy. And then it became more
real because Dave and Kate came here to my studio sothat I could visually show what I was talking about. I
just put on some random music and flipped throughsome photographs just so you could get the feel forwhat it is. Dave got it right away, seemingly
instantaneously.
King: When you started presenting your idea for thecollaboration, it was like we had these ideas circulatingin our own lives. I had an idea to try something thatinvolved working with a visual artist in a presentation,
almost like a slideshow. We got to talking about foundpostcards, and just immediately you’re like, “I have thiswhole found-photograph archive.”
Soth: For years before this, I tried to figure out ways towork with text and image and collaborating withdifferent writers. I did a collaboration with Billy Bragg
one time in a totally different way, and that was cool,but it was nothing like this. There’re so many ways tocombine photographs and music that don’t work andare super cheesy. And I’ve seen these slideshows, andthe mood swells at a certain point, and it feels forced
the way music in a film can feel forced.
In your last book, I Know How Furiously Your
Heart Is Beating, you talk about “getting backto basics” and avoiding making photographs
under a huge unifying theme like lonely men or
people living along the Mississippi. So why
impose a theme or a narrative on a pile ofhttps://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

4/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

photographs that aren’t yours instead ofdeciding to make new work of your own?
Soth: At Little Brown Mushroom, my publishing side
project, what all our books had in common was
combining text and image. And what I found was, inorder to get the balance right between text and image,the image has to be less chock-full of information. Likein my collaboration with Brad Zellar, it was black-andwhite flash photography, less info. And Brad and I did abook where it was very heavy text, and thus I used adisposable camera and very few pictures.

Soth and King rehearse The Palms in November 2020.

House of Coates?
Soth: Exactly. So, to get the balancing act right, thephotos have to contain less information, and almost allof my pictures are very informational. And so there’s
just not space for words next to them or for music next
to them. And that’s not to say I wouldn’t make newwork for this, but it would be tricky. For the previous
year, I was thinking so much about these photographsthat I’ve been acquiring and how to make meaning fromthem and how photographs work in the world. And thisis a way to explore that.
https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

5/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

In a Paris Review article revisiting yourSleeping by the Mississippi photographs, you
said you have “always worked poetically insteadof narratively.”
Soth: What’s so cool about this is that the meaning ofthese photographs is not analytical, and it’s not logical.
It’s not an essay to be written. And even making a bookof these photographs is too constricted. Going themusical path, it does something else. It’s like the energyof it is moving through them, and that’s something I’ve
never experienced. I’ve just not had the opportunity to
do this. I have that feeling sometimes when I’m editing,but then it’s lost. And here it’s like editing live.
Dave, you’ve worked in both rock- and popbased structures and formats, and you’ve donea ton of improv jazz stuff. So, how do you see
the narrative running through Alec’s images?
King: The way I see Alec’s work, and the way that I’mtrying to relate to it, is that the way that we combine
these images actually relates quite a bit to some free
improvisation, where you have to allow some space fora possible epiphany. There’s an old saying, “If 20
percent of a free [jazz] music show works, it’s a victory.”
And I’m like, “Wow, hopefully I’ll get to 20 percent atsome point in my life.” I see what he’s doing, and welook at each other and laugh, because it does makesense on some level to us equally. I really feel like I
found another collaborator of clarity meets
subconscious poetic flow. And that’s truly the
ingredient of a really good improviser and a really goodcomposer.

https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

6/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

Soth: The first time we practiced, Dave said that line
about free jazz, about hitting it 20 percent of the time,and I was like, “Wow.” That really made an impression
on me. I found it very comforting. So, here’s the funny
thing about photography—when I’m moving throughthe world, taking pictures, my percentage is more like 2
percent. But when it happens, it’s extraordinary magic.
There’s no one around to share it with; it’s just thatmoment. Moving through the world doing that stuff isvery improvisational and beautiful, and I always feellike I’m doing performance art, but there’s absolutely
no audience for it and there never will be. And then thephotograph itself is this other thing, and it’s quite
frozen, and it sits on a wall or in a book, and it functions
in a totally different way. So, I do see this as anopportunity to share some of the process stuff withother people in the moment.
Because you’ll be performing for an audience
instead of just for a subject?
Soth: Exactly. Yeah. And it’s less about the end result.
But I’m still trained to think about the end result. And
so I have moments where I’m like, “Is anyone going to
get this? Is it going to be satisfying to people?” It’s

https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

7/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

important to me that I don’t feel like we’re just like,“Fuck the audience; they’re bored.”
King: So it must be stated that many elements of thisare very, very composed. And so to make it sound like
“we’re jamming” would be very misleading. I’m playing
piano on several pieces that are composed and written.
Alec had mentioned a couple of themes, so I went andcomposed some themes. And then, just like asymphony, there’s a couple movements in it that thentake us someplace that is wild and uncharted. So, it issymphonic. I use that word a lot with this piece.
But did it start in a more primordial way? Like,“What photographs are we going to choose?
What music am I going to write to this sequenceof photographs?” And improv was one of thetools that you used to build the structure?
King: Yes. Correct. Because, I mean, anytime you’re
composing thematically, if someone’s saying, “OK, well,this is the aura around this type of thing”—I have to
begin with some searching through the dark and somespace so that I have a visual, but I don’t quite know thepacing of anything yet. We definitely improvise.
The language of jazz can be so personal andidiosyncratic that it can feel opaque at times.
But onstage your banter is hilarious, Dave. Is
that an intentional technique to help theaudience find a way into what might be achallenging set?
King: Well, I appreciate that question, because it
would be wrong of me to say I’m not aware that it
hopefully adds a certain surreal element to the wholething. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s almost likeavant-garde cabaret or something. You take a band like
https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

8/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

Happy Apple, and you get 75 minutes of thisintrospective jazz shit—I mean, I feel a little bit likesome levity has to occur on some level with everything
you’re trying to put out there. I’ve been a member of an
audience where you’re just like, “Dang, these guys are
just shuffling through their charts. And this stuff is likequantum mechanics.” Some of it works and some of it
doesn’t, and there’s something communal about havingsome rhetoric onstage that feels a little bit morerelease-oriented. I think it’s directly related to helping
the music. And at the same time as our own release—of
just laughing about how serious we take this stuff.
So, the banter is actually less planned thananything else?
King: Right. Maybe you’ve seen this—sometimes I
don’t say anything for three or four tunes or whatever.
And then all of a sudden there’s a 15-minute fantasia
about something completely insane. And everyone islooking around like, This is an interesting show.
How serious is this show going to be?
Soth: I have to take some responsibility for this, butthere’s some darkness to it. And that’s just me; I know
that’s some of my stuff. I mean, it’s dark humor also.
It’s like Lake Wobegon meets the Coen brothers.
You’ve long been obsessed with making
portraits of people you find in the middle of thecountry. But so many of our rural aunts anduncles are wearing MAGA hats now—and havebecome less charming.
Soth: I mean, in some ways this is an escape from all of
that. I still can’t process any of it—I’m still in disbelief.
But recently, I got a subscription to Newspapers.com,
https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

9/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

the vast newspaper archive. And I decided instead ofreading today’s local paper, I was going to read a 100year-old paper in the morning. And it’s so interesting.
The world has always been so fucked up. Murder,
suicide, misogyny—it’s all so vast. And I actually took
comfort in this. That humans are complicated and wemess things up. I don’t know how much you know
about Weegee the photographer, but he was thismidcentury press photographer in New York. And hetook this delight in the theater of New York, and it
became this persona of just enjoying the theater of life.
And so, there’s that element in what we’re doing too.
Rather than giving in to the depression of our time, justhaving some fun, I don’t know.
How big was this collaboration to you
personally?
King: I think we’re both responsible guys who careabout people. And I think that we looked at each otherwith the ease that we were approaching thecollaboration energetically. I think we used that ease to
get over the normal anxieties that people are having
right now with being around each other.
Soth: I have no friends. [Snickers.] So, this is good.
King: We just do this a couple of times a week, and we
sit and talk about our kids and whatever, and it’s really
nice, actually, to have a thoughtful, intelligent new pal.
It overwhelmed me one evening, like, “Man, this is oneof the best things I’ve ever been a part of in my career.”
And just to get to do it and get to talk to you about it.
Soth: No, it’s a special thing. And it will live on.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
For more on The Palms livestream on January 30,
https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

10/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

visit thegreatnorthernfestival.com<https://thegreatnorthernfestival.com/> .

Lyrical Meaning
Alec Soth and Dave King’s The Palms will debut(virtually) at The Parkway Theater during this year’s
Great Northern festival<https://thegreatnorthernfestival.com/> . The
performance is a quixotic investigation into the very
meaning of photography—the voyeuristic production
and consumption of imagery—set to music. Here, Sothgives us an exclusive preview of the found-photo rabbit
hole (you’ll have to provide your own music).

“I was thinking so much about
these photographs that I’ve
been acquiring. how to makemeaning from them and how
photographs work in the world.
And this is a way to explore
that.”
Alec Soth
1 of 9https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

11/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine“In 2019 I went on a cross-country road trip—my intention for thistrip was to just go with the ow, to let one thing lead to another. My
rst stop was at this antique store in Winona.”

2 of 9“I bought some photographs, and this was my favorite.”

3 of 9https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

12/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine“Later that evening I thought, I’d like to see myself photographed likethat. On my next stop, in Spring eld, Illinois, I found a portrait
photographer named Dean Williams.”

4 of 9Dean Williams’s photo strip of Alec.

5 of 9“I ended up spending the day with Dean and learned that he used tobe the Illinois State Police photographer and had a huge archive of
his police photos. From my perspective as an art photographer, they
https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

13/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

seemed almost impossible to match. Each night I would lay them out
on my hotel bed and try to make sense of them.”

6 of 9“I tuned out of Twitter and subscribed to Newspapers.com. I started
reading local papers from 75 to 100 years ago.”

7 of 9“One of my favorite nds was learning that Weegee, the selfproclaimed ‘World’s Greatest Photographer,’ visited Minneapolis for
one night. He made this photo in front of the Persian Palms
nightclub, and it was published in The Minneapolis Star on October
11, 1950.”
https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

14/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

8 of 9“In Minnesota, there’s a tendency to Lake Wobegon-ize the past.
After I spent months devouring our depravity—suicides and peeping
Toms, strangulations and mail bombs—the Coen brothers seemed a
lot more relevant.”

9 of 9https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

15/16

2/2/2021

Behind Alec Soth and Dave King's Audio-Visual Performance: The Palms - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

Steve Marsh
Steve Marsh is a senior writer at Mpls.St.Paul
Magazine.
Read more by Steve Marsh

3

More than one instance of Sumo is attempting to start on this page. Please check that you are only
loading Sumo once per page.

https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/alec-soth-dave-king-the-palms-great-northern/

16/16