Mark Steinmetz: South

© Mark Steinmetz, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, Athens, GA (girl on hood of car), 1996. Gelatin silver print.
Tonight, the Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York opens an exhibition of photographs by Mark Steinmetz. running through May 13th, 2017. Titled South, the show is an elegant and quiet collection of black-and-white photographs “drawn from the artist’s decades-long career photographing the southeastern United States, primarily in Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. Steinmetz’s images are imbued with an intrinsically Southern tenderness, melancholy and longing that is universally resonant”. The work is documentary in nature but he brings a sublime seeing to his subjects, captured with a nod towards beauty and dignity and very much in keeping with the approach of Southern grace.

© Mark Steinmetz, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, Athens, GA (balloon at dusk), 1995. Gelatin silver print.
Mark Steinmetz was recently awarded a commission from the High Museum of Art, Atlanta as part of their Picturing the South series, which will be exhibited at the museum in 2017. A graduate of Yale’s MFA photography program, Steinmetz spent a year photographing alongside Garry Winogrand in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. Since 1994, he has been living and working in Athens, Georgia. His work has been acquired by major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has nine monographs of his work including South East, South Central, Greater Atlanta, Angel City West, and The Players published by Nazraeli Press and the 2016 release 15 Miles to K-Ville by Stanley/Barker. Among other awards, Mark Steinmetz is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.

© Mark Steinmetz, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, Athens, GA (ribbon) 2009. Gelatin silver print.

© Mark Steinmetz, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, Atlanta, GA (father and son by gas station), 2007. Gelatin silver print.

© Mark Steinmetz, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, College Park, GA (plane and streetlight), 2016. Gelatin silver print

© Mark Steinmetz, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, Jessica, Athens, GA, 1997. Gelatin silver print.

© Mark Steinmetz, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, Knoxville, TN (man in creek), 1992. Gelatin silver print.

© Mark Steinmetz, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, Knoxville, TN (man sitting on table), 1991. Gelatin silver print.

© Mark Steinmetz, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, Knoxville, TN (weed in crack), 1992. Gelatin silver print.

© Mark Steinmetz, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, Lightning Strike, Mississippi, 1994.

© Mark Steinmetz, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, Maia, Knoxville, TN (woman at fence), 1991. Gelatin silver print.

© Mark Steinmetz, Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, Margaretha, Athens, GA, 1999. Gelatin silver print.
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