A Long Arc: Photography and the American South

Collects over 175 years of key moments in the visual history of the Southern United States, with over two hundred and fifty photographs taken from 1845 to present. The South is perhaps the most mythologized region in the United States and also one of the most depicted. Since the dawn of photography in the nineteenth century, photographers have articulated the distinct and evolving character of the South’s people, landscape, and culture and reckoned with its fraught history. Indeed, many of the urgent questions we face today about what defines the American experience—from racism, poverty, and the legacy of slavery to environmental disaster, immigration, and the changes wrought by a modern, global economy—appear as key themes in the photography of the South. The visual history of the South is inextricably intertwined with the history of photography and also the history of America, and is therefore an apt lens through which to examine American identity. A Long Arc: Photography and the American South accompanies a major exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, with more than one hundred photographers represented, including Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Gordon Parks, William Eggleston, Sally Mann, Carrie Mae Weems, Dawoud Bey, Alec Soth, and An-My Lê. Insightful texts by Imani Perry, Sarah Kennel, Makeda Best, and Rahim Fortune, among others, illuminate this broad survey of photographs of the Southern United States as an essential American story. Copublished by Aperture and High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 304
Number of images: 275
Publication date: 2023-11-21
Measurements: 8.07 x 11.42 inches
ISBN: 9781597115513

“The magnificence of a retrospective like this is not just the accounting offered by its historical sweep, but the way it conveys the immense complexity of this region, to inspire a renewed attention to the cruel radiance of what is. Suffering does not always lead to compassion and change, but photographs like these remind us that standing in witness to suffering surely should.”—Margaret Renkl, The New York Times

“…these photographs demonstrate how essential the South has been not only to American history and identity, but to American photography—from Mathew Brady’s battlefield images of the Civil War (1861–65) to the intimate interiors of Carrie Mae Weems.”—Andrew Durbin, Frieze magazine

Imani Perry is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and a faculty associate with the programs in law and public affairs, gender and sexuality studies, and jazz studies.
Sarah Kennel is the Aaron Siskind Curator of Photography and Director of the Raysor Center for Works on Paper at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.
Gregory J. Harris is the Donald and Marilyn Keough Family Curator of Photography at the High Museum of Art.
Makeda Best is the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography at the Harvard Art Museums.
LeRonn P. Brooks is associate curator for modern and contemporary collections at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.
Rahim Fortune is a photographer living and working between Austin and Brooklyn.
Grace Elizabeth Hale is commonwealth professor of American studies and history at the University of Virginia.
Maria L. Kelly is assistant curator of photography at the High Museum of Art.
Scott L. Matthews is assistant professor of history at Florida State College at Jacksonville.
Brian Piper is Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Assistant Curator of Photographs at the New Orleans Museum of Art.