Derek Jeter, Last Home Run Ever in Yankee Stadium, Tintype 1582, 2014

Aperture is pleased to offer these unique tintypes by Tabitha Soren, in conjunction with the publication of the artist’s monograph, Fantasy Life. In 2002, Soren first began photographing a group of minor league draft picks for the Oakland A’s—young men coming into the major league farm system straight from high school or college. Since then, she has followed the players through their baseball lives, an alternate reality of long bus rides, on-field injuries, friendships, and marriages entered and exited, constant motion, and very hard work, often for very little return. A number of the photos in the series are presented as tintypes, unique prints made by exposing the image on emulsion spread over a thin sheet of metal. The use of this antique process serves to further illuminate the art of each player in motion. Soren has said of the series, “Fantasy Life is a metaphor for all these other fantasies that are part of the American culture: The fantasy that failure leads to success, despite hitting the ball successfully only around a third of the time. The romantic myth of the restless wanderer, even as they cram in 162 major-league games a season. And the central American fantasy that says we have to do something extraordinary to lead a meaningful life.”

Unique Tintype
Image Size: 8 x 10 inches, framed
Signed and numbered by the artist

Tabitha Soren (b. 1967, San Antonio, Texas) is an artist and Peabody Award–winning journalist, best known for her work with MTV News. Her photographs are held in many private and public collections, including those of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New Orleans Museum of Art; George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California; Cleveland Museum of Art; Oakland Museum of California; and Pier 24, San Francisco. Her work has been featured in Dear Dave, McSweeney’s, Vanity Fair, New York Times Magazine, Blink, Slate, New York, Sports Illustrated, California Sunday Magazine, and ESPN The Magazine.Soren lives and works in Berkeley, California.