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Sally Mann, \u201cBloody Nose\u201d (c 1991). Collection of Sally Mann<\/p>\n Sally Mann, \u201cBloody Nose\u201d (c 1991). Collection of Sally Mann<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve all seen that photograph. A girl \u2014 young but curiously ageless at the same time \u2014 looks knowingly at the camera, her blonde hair carelessly swept. She slings one arm defensively over her white summer dress, the other haughtily holding what looks to be a cigarette. The photograph, <\/span>Candy Cigarette<\/span><\/i> \u2014 the title confirming the true nature of the suspect object \u2014 is one of a number of photographs by the American photographer Sally Mann that instigated widespread moral panic in the early 1990s. The series, entitled <\/span>Immediate Family<\/span><\/i>, consisted of monochrome portraits of Mann\u2019s young children taken at her family farm in Virginia, on an 8 x 10 inch, large format camera. The source of the outrage was the unflinching nudity of the children, their sullen expressions and the stark, unmanicured nature of the scenarios depicted. The divisive quality of the images was so extreme that it prompted one New York Times Magazine<\/em> journalist, Richard Woodward, to write a damning cover story, \u201cThe Disturbing Photography of Sally Mann\u201d, which drummed up national outrage. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Since then, Mann has mostly shed the accusations of vulgarity provoked by the unveiling of <\/span>Immediate Family<\/span><\/i>. Nowadays, the series is more commonly recognised as a breath-taking <\/span>tour de force<\/span><\/i> in black and white portrait photography \u2014 one that brings into play the medium\u2019s fraught relationship with fact and fiction. Rather than underscoring the undoubtedly provocative aspect of her work, the exhibition<\/span> Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings<\/span><\/i>, which opens this weekend at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, highlights the frequently poignant and poetic nature of her imagery. Debuting earlier this year at the NGA in Washington, <\/span>A Thousand Crossings <\/span><\/i>centres on the resounding themes in Mann\u2019s work: family and parenting; race and \u00a0history; memory and desire; death and mortality, and, in particular, nature and the land. Indeed, more than anything, this exhibition spotlights the most significant player in all of Mann\u2019s work: the American South.<\/span> The swampy landscape of the American South saturates Mann’s oeuvre. The photographer, who was born and raised in Lexington, Virginia, captures shadowy patches of water spliced with murky light, or dark forests crowned with a canopy of branches. In one image, <\/span>Deep South, Untitled (Scarred Tree)<\/span><\/i> from 1998, the trump of a tree is dashed with a wound-like mouth. This eerie example of pareidolia alludes to the intense and powerful, almost human-like grip of the South on Mann; the landscape, much more than simply soil and water, is akin to an animate, potent being.\u00a0<\/span>Mann tries to articulate just what it is about the South in her bestselling memoir, <\/span>Hold Still<\/span><\/i>. Here, she describes it as both \u201calluring\u201d and \u201crepellent… like fruit on the verge of decay\u201d. \u00a0Mann\u2019s photographs are an effort to unite the South\u2019s sublime beauty with its marred, melancholic past.<\/span><\/p>\n In 1985, Mann famously began to photograph her three young children \u2014 Emmett, Jessie and Virginia \u2014 at their farm along the Maury river, near Lexington. From nosebleeds to bedwetting to bathing in the river and playing among the damp fauna of the Southern wilderness, the photographs chronicle the youngsters\u2019 growing-up. At its best, photography should reveal what otherwise goes unnoticed, and Mann\u2019s family photographs make apparent the complexity of childhood \u2014 the fluctuant moods of the children, their growing bodies and tender emotions, their wildness and independence, their strength and vulnerability. Mann presents her children as brilliant, bubbling individuals, who possess streaks of darkness as well as light, combining innocence and knowledge. Frequently, these are uncomfortable images \u2014 their pale, bony nudity and fearless expressions render the viewer speechless \u2014 however, their rawness can be considered a testament to the intimacy between photographer and subject. It is important to note that, through her lens, Mann\u2019s children became precisely that: \u201csubjects\u201d. For Mann, there is a fundamental divide between the fiction of the photograph and the fact of real life. As she writes in <\/span>Hold Still<\/span><\/i>, \u201cThese are not my children, they are figures on silvery paper slivered out of time\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Even in today\u2019s era of Photoshop and arranged Instagram flat lays, authenticity \u2014 \u201cnatural\u201d or candid photography \u2014 continues to be privileged by many as the Holy Grail. This is particularly apparent in art photography where images are expected to be the result of some divine artistic intervention as opposed to genuine effort . Although Mann\u2019s photographs of her family are often considered as intimate \u201csnapshots\u201d, in most cases they are anything but. In <\/span>Hold Still<\/span><\/i>, Mann describes herself as a \u201cterrier [in] pursuit of the perfect picture\u201d, and outlines the arduous process involved in capturing one particular photograph of her son, Emmett, emerging from shallow, turbid waters. Over the duration of a balmy September week, Mann took photo after photo of the same scene slightly altered each time. Before she produced an image that she was happy with, she discarded endless \u201cfailures\u201d containing too much light or shadow, too many trees, or not quite the right body position. Mann believes that photography often requires \u201ca Herculean effort\u201d \u2014 the genesis of a perfect photograph emerges through trial and error. In contrast, she regards the spontaneous images, the moments of magical happenstance, to be \u201ccelestial gifts\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPart of the artist\u2019s job is to make the commonplace singular, to project a different interpretation onto the conventional,\u201d says Mann. Although Mann is famous for photographing surroundings that are familiar to her, her images make strange the scenarios and locations of everyday life. Frequently, an eerie fog descends on her scenes lending otherwise unthreatening landscapes a haunting, impenetrable quality. Rivers and trees, or classic American clapboard bungalows transform into artefacts from a history or time that the viewer is not fully privy to. While this might sound like she spends hours lingering in deserted forests to capture the ideal, mist-blurred shot, Mann wholeheartedly believes that good photographs \u201ccan be made everywhere\u201d \u2014 even in the most minute moments of day-to-day life.<\/span><\/p>\n Since the earliest days of photography \u2014 when photographs were most commonly made of the deceased \u2014 the medium has been intimately connected with mortality. Originally, photographs were<\/span> momento mori<\/span><\/i>, a treasured keepsake to commemorate the passing of a loved one, and the photography of Mann continues this tradition. By her own admission, Mann regards herself to be obsessed with death, believing that an awareness of life\u2019s transiency incites a greater appreciation for life itself. \u201cI believe it can make me better at living, and better at loving, and, just possibly, better at seeing,\u201d she says. Mann sees beauty in the dark side of things \u2014 the whiff of death and decay in the American South is what makes the landscape so spectacular. She is attune to the force of death in the dank soil, or in the aching muscles of her ageing husband (as in her 2003 image,\u00a0<\/span>Semaphore<\/span><\/i>)<\/span>. Her photographs, many of which are best described as elegiac, \u00a0breathe and beat with the heavy weight of memory and desire. Mann does not understand photographs to be static preservations, however, but maintains that their singular power resides in their ability to \u201csupplant and corrupt the past, all the while creating memories of their own\u201d.<\/span> As her exhibition “A Thousand Crossings” opens in Salem, we examine the themes and principles that define the American image-maker’s singular oeuvre.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67231,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[10819,154,10820,10821],"class_list":["post-67207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-peabody-essex-museum","tag-photography","tag-sally-mann","tag-sally-mann-a-thousand-crossings"],"acf":{"main_category":false,"legacy":true,"subtitle":"","hero":{"video":false,"image":false,"header_color":"black","overlay_color":"","overlay_text_color":"black"},"teasers":{"video":false,"image":false,"width":"4","proportion":"default"},"related_articles":"","next_article":"","content":false},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/4870-136-Full-JPG.jpg\")
Sally Mann, Bean\u2019s Bottom, 1991. Private collection.<\/p>\n
\nHere, to celebrate the opening, and in recognition of the singular and suggestive intensity of Mann\u2019s photography, we explore the themes and principles that define her unique practice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n1. A powerful sense of place<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/4870-015-Full-JPG.jpg\")
Sally Mann, Deep South, Untitled (Scarred Tree), 1998. Courtesy of National Gallery of Art, Washington, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund.<\/p>\n2. An intimacy with her subjects<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/4870-013-Full-JPG.jpg\")
Sally Mann, Easter Dress, 1986. Courtesy of Patricia and David Schulte.<\/p>\n3. Constant trial and error<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/4870-014-Full-JPG.jpg\")
Sally Mann, The Ditch, 1987. Courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago.<\/p>\n4. Making the ordinary extraordinary <\/b><\/h2>\n
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Sally Mann, Oak Hill Baptist 01:01, 2008-2016. Collection of the artist.<\/p>\n5. Acknowledging the transiency of life<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/4870-102-Full-JPG-2.jpg\")
Sally Mann, Semaphore, 2003. Courtesy of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.<\/p>\n
\nSally Mann: A Thousand Crossings<\/span><\/i><\/a> opens at The Peabody Essex Museum on June 30.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"