"I am drawn to situations and images that explore uncertainty, and obsessed with how control and chance define our lives. Baseball is a place full of luck and uncertainty, of heroism and vulnerability. A place where it's entirely possible for things to go wrong or fall short. Each of the twenty-one players' stories in Fantasy Life contains its own special combination of luck, control, chaos, and unpredicability." - Tabitha Soren
Daniel Robertson, Stockton Ports Shortstop, California League Northern Division Championship, Visalia, CA, 2014. Photo courtesy of Tabitha Soren.
Exhibition
Fantasy Life, an exhibition by Tabitha Soren, reflects a fifteen year photo-based project examining the fragility, tenacity and resilience of the human spirit through the lens of professional baseball. In 2002, Soren started documenting the new draft picks for the Oakland A’s. In addition to many of those draftees, she followed players from major and minor leagues throughout their careers, photographing life in the game as well as quiet moments off the field. Depicted in black and white, color and tintype, Soren takes us into intimate and thoughtful territory, creating a complex and epic portrait that celebrates the game we think we know, while it also subverts general assumptions of heroism, power and fame, complicating the narrative surrounding the American Dream.
Artist
Tabitha Soren left a successful career in television in 1999 to start another one as a photographer. Her work is included in museum collections across the U.S. as well as featured in top publications including New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, and Sports Illustrated. She is represented by Euqinom Gallery in San Francisco.
The Book
Fantasy Life was published by Aperture in 2017. The book features 149 images, commentary by select players, and a five-part short story by Dave Eggers.
Press
Fantasy Life has been featured in numerous major media outlets. Select coverage includes: The San Francisco Chronicle, KQED, NBC Bay Area, The Guardian, and The New Yorker.
Exhibition Format
Wall-Hanging |
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Core Exhibition Content |
34 Framed photographs (B&W and color in various sizes) 24 Framed tintypes (10 x 12 inches, both landscape and portrait) |
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Space Requirements |
1000-square-foot gallery space minimum |
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Rental Fee |
$6,000 / $9,000 / $12,000* |
| Rental Period |
2-8 weeks / 9-12 weeks / 13-16 weeks |
*Rental fee includes core exhibition, complete inventory of works, communication with exhibition curator, print-ready images for promotional purposes, print-ready exhibition signage, graphic design files and standards, suggested public programming, and a copy of the book, Fantasy Life. Rental fee does NOT include shipping costs to and from your institution or printed exhibition signage, travel expenses and speaking fees for the artist or curator.
Contact the curator
Meg Shiffler is the curator of Fantasy Life and Galleries Director and Chief Curator for the San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries (SFAC Galleries). Shiffler was a faculty member of the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute and lectures regularly at academic and cultural institutions. Shiffler worked at the New Museum (New York), Andrea Rosen Gallery (New York), and Ursula Meyer Art Conservancy, she was the co-founder and Director of Visual Art for the multidisciplinary art center, Consolidated Works in Seattle.
Contact Meg Shiffler at meg.shiffler@sfgov.org or (415) 252-2234