Nothing quite sums up a person’s guiding ethos like the outsize, artsy book commanding prime real estate on his or her coffee table. Its central spot and considerable outlay convey far more about the owner than those slender volumes quietly lining a bookshelf.

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Last year, the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art launched its ultra-ambitious touring exhibition, “Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South,” rounding up 56 photographers’ visions of the South over the first part of the 21st century. A hardcover catalog, which was edited by curators Mark Sloan and Mark Long, documents the show while also conferring a collective new view on South that upends many a preconception of moonlight and magnolias.