Sage Sohier
Passing Time
Feb 1 - Mar 2, 2024
During the isolation of the pandemic, I had the opportunity to revisit my archive of negatives and contact sheets from the 1980s, and discovered a number of interesting images that I had never printed. These photographs were made between 1979-1985 in a pre-digital, largely un-air-conditioned era, when people fled the heat of their houses to hang out in their yards and on the street. I notice a kind of relaxed sensuality in many of the pictures. Time moved more slowly; restlessness led to spontaneous play. Young people back then were fit and lean from running around outside with their friends and neighbors.
As a young photographer, my rather grandiose ambition was to create a portrait of contemporary America by photographing people in their environments. I was obsessed with making the best complex pictures that I could of people hanging out in neighborhoods, in their homes, and on their porches. It was exciting when I came upon an interesting situation, and I loved the challenge of collaborating with strangers until something compelling emerged from the interaction. I had to work quite quickly, so that I could let people get back to whatever they were doing when I first asked if I could photograph them. Though asking permission usually changed the dynamic of the situation, interesting things would often emerge when I was allowed to stay for longer than a picture or two. Intruding on people’s personal space could feel awkward, and was never easy to do, but most of the time it seemed that my enthusiasm was contagious and people were able to relax and be themselves.
A lot of time has passed since these wanderings, and though much is still vivid in my mind, I wish I had kept a journal about the people I met, the conversations I had, and the strange and wonderful things that I noticed along the way. In my twenties, I began to see the world and understand more about people from a variety of different backgrounds. Meeting people (in order to photograph them) was thrilling, and it changed me. Being a photographer has been a wonderful excuse to wander and to be inquisitive about others’ lives and experiences. I will always be grateful to the people pictured here–not just for allowing me to spend time making pictures of them–but also for how these interactions informed and enriched my life.
Sage Sohier (American, b. 1954, she/her/hers) has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the No Strings Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation.
She has published eight monographs, including Passing Time, (Nazraeli Press 2023), Peaceable Kingdom, (Kehrer Verlag 2021) Animals, (Stanley/Barker 2019), Americans Seen, (Nazraeli Press 2017), Witness to Beauty, (Kehrer Verlag 2017), At Home with Themselves: Same-Sex Couples in 1980s America, (Spotted Books 2014), About Face, (Columbia College Chicago Press 2012), and Perfectible Worlds, (Photolucida 2007).
She has had solo shows at Foley Gallery in New York, Robert Klein Gallery in Boston, Carroll and Sons Gallery in Boston, Joseph Bellows Gallery in San Diego, The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, and Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR. Her work has been included in group shows at the Museum of Modern Art, NY, Fotografiska in Stockholm, the International Center of Photography, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and many other venues.
Sohier’s work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Portland Art Museum, the Davis Museum, Wellesley College, and the Brooklyn Museum, to name a few.
She has taught photography at Harvard University, Wellesley College, and the Massachusetts College of Art, and has done commissioned work for the George Gund Foundation in Cleveland, the Robert Rauschenberg Residency program in Captiva, FL, and the Photographic Resource Center in Boston, as well as editorial work for numerous publications.
She is represented by Robert Klein Gallery in Boston, and Joseph Bellows Gallery in CA.