Mark Steinmetz, Greater Atlanta, 2020

Mark Steinmetz completes his powerful and moving trilogy, South, with Greater Atlanta. Photographing in Atlanta and its outlying regions, Steinmetz provides his testimony on contemporary American civilization. Combining portraits and landscapes, he weaves a symbolic and lyrical investigation that subtly questions notions of progress. He further develops motifs — on the automobile, on the telephone — that were first introduced in South Central, and catalogues car culture, fast food, convenience stores, and suburban sprawl. “South 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.” — Lenscratch