Mark Steinmetz in London
We have been lucky enough to collaborate with Mark Steinmetz many times over the years, from the K-Ville books, to Rivers & Towns and Carnival. Mark seems to inhabit photography quite unlike anyone else, not as a craft alone but as a way of being in the world, moving through it with a rare ability to find poetry in the simplest of moments. His work from these books, along with images from further afield, are now on view at David Hill Gallery in London.
STANLEY/BARKER: Do you remember the very first photograph you made?
MARK STEINMETZ: I have two clear memories of making photographs from when I was around six years old; I’m not certain which came first. One memory is of returning to our house in Cambridge, Massachusetts after what seemed like a very long day at the beach. I got out of the car and pressed my belly over the car’s trunk, leaning in and moving the camera around until our house was framed just right. Another memory is of my mother handing me her camera to photograph my grandmother who was sitting in a chair. I remember getting low and close and could tell afterwards when the pictures were processed that I liked my image of my grandmother the best. Both memories are of the physical act of framing an image, which remains a pleasure to this day.
SB: Is this the first time you have shown in London?
MS: Yes, nothing before this show.
SB: How does working towards a book differ from working towards a show, do the images ask for different things?
MS: Shows tend to have greater input from the gallerist or presiding curator. After all, they are the ones covering the costs for the framing and the rent, and they have a sense of what their clients or audience respond to. A book is a fixed thing, the pages are sequenced, the images are often paired. In a book, the image must transmit while existing relatively small on the page. On a wall, the images are typically larger, and you can take in the craft of the actual print; in my work, the light is rendered through silver, not ink. You experience the image more with your whole self.
SB: This exhibition brings together pictures from Greater Atlanta, Summer Camp, The Players, Past K-Ville, and Chicago. Do you think of your American work as one larger body, a single unfolding project?
MS: I’ve always been committed to describing America. I tend to think of the pictures of kids and teenagers during summer (The Players, Summer Camp, Summertime) to be slightly apart from the work made in cities – Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Knoxville, Atlanta and New York – this city work is populated more by adults and has more bustle. There are a lot of unpublished recent photos from different American cities and places, and I hope to one day put together a book on American civilization which would be aligned with what Evans and Frank did, but which in my case was made over a longer time span.
SB: You’ve recently moved to Paris. Has the way you photograph there shifted from the way you worked in Georgia?
MS: Paris is a busy city. Like New York, people are on the move. In Paris, I walk around a lot and take the métro. I walk a good deal in Georgia too, but I also drive around in the car to find interesting subjects. I am currently doing more surreptitious photography in Paris; in Georgia, because it is less crowded, I end up talking more to others so I can position myself to where I want to be when I push the shutter. My mother was French, and I am now a French citizen. I have always had an affinity for France, and particularly for the great photography made in France.
SB: Do you see your pictures as rooted in autobiography, or do you feel they belong more to the people and places you photograph?
MS: I direct my attention more to other people and to different places than to myself. But if you go through my contact sheets you would find, without many gaps, a record of a life (past age 21.) This was not possible for previous generations.
SB: Looking back across your career, do you recognise threads or obsessions that have stayed constant, even as the locations and subjects change?
MS: I think the emphasis on psychological interiority (if that’s a word) has remained a constant. The love of light, weather and setting has stayed with me. I still love getting the timing right, and I still love the act of placing a frame around something.
Portrait of the young Mark Steinmetz by Joel Sternfeld