Alec Soth: Advice for Young Artists

Alec Soth: Advice for Young Artists by Tracy L. ChandlerMarch 20, 2025

Advice for Young Artists by Alec Soth
Tracy L Chandler in conversation with Alec Soth

Alec Soth is a public figure, at least in our corner of the art world, and a beloved one. His photographs, photobooks, and writing have been a great influence on photography over the last few decades. Many of us are referencing his work in our pictures whether we are aware of it or not.

After being a fan from afar, I came to know Alec through my grad school program where he was a mainstay in our summer critiques. I was pleased to find him to be so down-to-earth, kind, and generous. And since then, he continues to be generous, not only in my personal interactions but also in the hungry photography community. Via social media, workshops, and courses, Alec champions the work of others and shares his thoughts on photography and insights into his own process of making work, often with a bit of self-deprecating wit. He is a teacher, even if a reluctant one.

This brings me to his latest work published with Mack, Advice for Young Artists, a photobook of pictures made during trips to college campuses. During a period of self-inquiry, Soth accessed these schools in order to make work of-and-alongside young artists in hopes of reconnecting with his own youthful inspiration. The resulting book is a series of still lifes, portraits (of self and others), as well as bits of fleeting “wisdom” strewn throughout. A cracked student drawing of Alec himself adorns the cover.

Advice for Young Artists is a book with many pictures but very few words. From its title I would argue the book is not what you expect it would be but delivers on its promise all the same.

The following is a conversation between Tracy L Chandler and Alec Soth, edited for clarity and brevity.

TLC: Lately I have been very interested in the dynamics of teaching and learning, so when this book first came out, I was super excited. Advice for Young Artists! I thought I would be getting some sort of distilled hard copy of the mentoring experience of the Alec I know. But when I actually got it, I was confused. It wasn’t what I was expecting—especially from the title, but also from my experience of you as a teacher. I find you to be incredibly generous when it comes to sharing your thoughts, process, and knowledge. But my experience of this book was not that. My experience of this book was that you were holding that back.

AS: That hurts a little, but I see what you mean. There’s an expectation that a book like this would be full of advice, maybe even shortcuts. But I have a complicated relationship with that. If I saw a book that was like, “Here’s all the wisdom from this photographer,” I’d probably be skeptical, but at the same time, I’d want to read it.

TLC: Have you always been skeptical? Would you have felt differently about that when you were younger? If 19-year-old Alec saw a book called Advice for Young Artists, how would he have reacted?

AS: It depends on how it was framed. I remember buying a book where various artists responded to letters from young creatives. I was looking for wisdom, but it wasn’t one person’s voice telling me what to do. That felt better to me. Years ago, when I was involved with the Magnum blog, I asked different Magnum photographers to share just one piece of advice. That format worked for me because it didn’t pretend to be the definitive guide. The idea of one person filling an entire book with wisdom—that feels a little off to me.

TLC: Totally. I think for myself I am both yearning for guidance but also defensive of anything intruding upon my own agency. With this book, it was a bit of a surprise for me—not because I needed something specific from you, but because it didn’t conform to what I thought it would be. My ego—the part of me that needs to know everything—was bruised. I had to let go of my expectations and engage with the work on its own terms.

AS: I think that’s a general thing for me—setting up an expectation and then shifting it. There are always these questions people want to ask artists, but some of them feel off-limits, like, “What lens do you use?” or “How much money do you make?” And then there’s this idea that artists should have some profound wisdom to share. But in reality, I’m just figuring things out like everyone else. I’m contending with being someone who’s supposed to have the answer.

TLC: I totally get it. That gap between who you think you should be and who you actually are is headspace for making these pictures. We get to see you work through that. Let’s talk about the opening. The first page asks, “Who is this book for?” And then the next page offers an answer: “Advice for young artists.” But is it, though?

AS: Right. I was playing with these ideas as I was putting the book together. The Post-it notes started as placeholders—quick shorthand for ideas. I realized they created an interesting structure where things felt in flux. There’s also the idea of ownership—when you write your name in a book as a kid, claiming it. The book plays with that question: Is this for me? Is it for you?

TLC: That was my experience, these Post-its feel so fleeting and incomplete, but it took looking through the rest of the book to come back to the beginning. It’s you on the cover.

AS: That’s what I wanted—to set up an expectation and then challenge it. When I first announced the book on Instagram, people were like, “What about advice for middle-aged artists?” And I was thinking, That’s what this is!

TLC: So in a way, is the book about navigating disappointment?—both the audience’s and your own? Or maybe the book is about teaching, but without the traditional role of a teacher administering knowledge but about allowing people into the messy process of life as an artist and how to cope, how to thrive, in the ambiguity. You are teaching us something.

Speaking of teachers, I noticed that there aren’t any other teachers in the pictures—just students and you. Was that a conscious decision?

AS: Yes, very much so. I didn’t want this to be about a traditional educational structure. I wanted it to be about something more fluid—about engagement, about mirroring, about being both student and teacher at different moments. If I had included professional teachers, it would have changed the dynamic.

TLC: That makes sense. This isn’t about art school either; it’s about something more personal. I see you trying to connect with your own youthful art-making through the reflection of others. Borrowing energy where you can. But it doesn’t feel vampiric. There is an exchange. I am looking at the image of a doe-eyed young male with long soft hair being handed a flower by another. It’s very sweet.

AS: That’s me handing the flower. I’m performing that. The page before has the Post-it that says “what do you want really?” And then here I am giving this jewel of wisdom to a young person. Maybe I want to be admired for that. But this picture, this is a soft center sandwiched between other pictures that are much less sweet.

TLC: Yes. There’s a different formal approach in this book—more flash, tighter framing, a flattening of space. It feels more immediate, more direct.

AS: Yeah, that was a critical shift. I originally started photographing in my usual large-format style, and it felt false. Too earnest. Not how I was feeling. Changing my approach made all the difference. It’s like how Scorsese has The King of Comedy—something that doesn’t fit the mold of what people expect from him, but it makes sense in context. That soft earnestness wasn’t where I was at. This more aggressive, direct approach felt right.

TLC: What I hear you saying is you are sharing your whole self, your roundedness, and that you’re not always going to make that beautiful picture that others may expect.

AS: Yes, exactly. I was 100% in that place when I made this work. One of the things that is a challenge for me is always pairing up where I’m at right now, with the kind of work that I want to make and getting those two things in alignment. If I had tried to make the beautiful picture, I would be faking it in a way.

TLC: That totally tracks. And I think it connects to the broader theme of the book—the tension between sincerity and self-awareness, between vulnerability and self-protection. It’s interesting, when it comes to the self portraits, there seems to be a level of obscuration, right? Like in one you’re out of focus, and another you are hidden behind things, it’s very Where’s Waldo. Where’s Alec…

AS: I think it’s just an honest way of depicting myself right now. There’s a tension between wanting to be seen and wanting to hide. I’ve always been aware of that in my work. When I did Broken Manual, it pretended to be a guide for men escaping society, but it was really about my own feelings. This book has a similar structure—it looks like it’s offering advice, but it’s actually about me contending with not being a young artist anymore.

I want to be seen, but I’m also playing with how I present myself. I obsessively think about these issues with Robert Frank all the time. I just saw the MoMA exhibition from Frank’s late work and it’s in that work that he shows himself much more. In the Americans, there’s the picture at the window in Butte, Montana. I see Robert Frank there, but he’s not there. He’s obscured, but it’s a self-portrait. With the later work, I ask myself, “Did he overdo it? Was it too self-indulgent?” And it’s those questions that I struggle with, is it too much or should he have gone further? You know, which is it?

TLC: There is no right answer. And who are we to answer it? Only Frank can do that for himself. That goes for you too. And your book… It’s an inquiry, not a statement. It’s about the process, not the answers.

AS: Right. I don’t have the answers. But I hope the work invites people into that space of questioning alongside me.

TLC: And maybe that’s the real advice—to stay in the space of questioning.

AS: Yes. I think so.

Advice for Young Artists by Alec Soth is published by Mack Books.

The work will also be exhibited at the following gallery shows…

Advice For Young Artists
Weinstein Hammons Gallery
Minneapolis, Minnesota
February 13, 2025

Advice For Young Artists
Sean Kelly Gallery
New York, New York
March 6–April 26, 2025

Advice for Young Artists
Fraenkel Gallery
San Francisco, California
April 17–May 30, 2025

Alec Soth (b. 1969) is a photographer born and based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has published over thirty books including Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004), NIAGARA (2006), Broken Manual (2010), Songbook (2015), I Know How Furiously Your Heart is Beating (2019), A Pound of Pictures (2022), and Advice for Young Artists (2024). Soth has had over fifty solo exhibitions including survey shows organized by Jeu de Paume in Paris (2008), the Walker Art Center in Minnesota (2010), Media Space in London (2015), and the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (2024). Soth has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2013). In 2008, Soth created Little Brown Mushroom, a multi-media enterprise focused on visual storytelling. Soth is represented by Sean Kelly in New York, Weinstein Hammons Gallery in Minneapolis, Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco, Loock Galerie in Berlin, and is a member of Magnum Photos.

Follow Alec Soth on Instagram and YouTube.

Tracy L Chandler is a photographer based in Los Angeles, CA. Her monograph A POOR SORT OF MEMORY is now available from Deadbeat Club.

Follow Tracy L Chandler on Instagram.