Two Towels 2004

Here we see Alec Soth’s photograph, "Two Towels," made with light and a lens. It's a still life, kinda square, and almost sentimental. Two towel-swans necking on a motel bed. What was Soth thinking when he shot this? Is he making a joke, or is he genuinely moved by this gesture? That bedspread is really something: big, blowsy flowers, like something from a dream, or a nightmare. Everything feels a little faded, a little worn. Like an old painting, really. For me, this piece really chimes with the work of other photographers like William Eggleston or Nan Goldin. They were also drawn to the beauty in the everyday, the overlooked, the slightly seedy. Artists are always bouncing off each other like that. It's like a big, ongoing conversation about how we see the world. Photography and painting—both are ways of looking, ways of feeling.