In this lyrical work, Mark Steinmetz features children and teenagers in the midst of everyday activity within urban, rural, and suburban landscapes. They are subtle yet powerful pictures that capture both a strong sense of displacement and isolation felt by many young Americans as well as a shared joy, tenderness, and ineffable beauty. In his introduction to Steinmetz’s celebrated book South East, Peter Galassi writes, "Mark Steinmetz works in a venerable tradition of photographic prowling that bets everything on the ordinary. Each picture is the fruit of an unplanned encounter: Though the photographer may know more or less where he is going, he can’t know precisely what he will find. An accumulation of these improvised perceptions can make both a world and a way of looking at it".
Summertime at Joseph Bellows Gallery will feature a selection of gelatin silver prints from the artist’s upcoming, revised, and expanded book of the same title to be published later this year by Nazraeli Press. Taken between 1984 and 1991, the images in Summertime capture the light, emotion, and possibility of an endless summer day. In addition, images from the artist’s Summer Camp series will be featured in an accompanying online show.
