South Central

Hardcover, cloth
29 × 32 cm
72 pages
57 plates

The new 2020 edition is printed in quadratone on heavy paper and clothbound.

Renowned for his modest yet powerful photographs capturing the sense of displacement and isolation experienced by many young Americans, Mark Steinmetz photographed in and around Knoxville, Tennessee, creating the body of work that became South Central.

The title of the book comes from the South Central Bell telephone company, which served Knoxville, and whose public pay phones appear as a recurring motif throughout the work—an iconic reminder of the area’s socio-economic conditions.

Steinmetz possesses a rare ability to reveal vulnerability, aggression, humor, and tenderness through his lens simultaneously. With South Central, he delivers a powerful and deeply moving visual narrative on the human condition.

Mark Steinmetz is a Guggenheim Fellow. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.