- Venue
- The Photographers Gallery
- Location
- London
For those of us who are unfamiliar with Mann’s work, or haven’t had the chance to see it other than in books, this exhibition will come as a pleasant surprise. The Family and the Land: Sally Mann at The Photographer’s Gallery is an edited version of a retrospective that has already toured Europe, and the first solo exhibition of the artist in the UK.
As the title suggests, Mann’s work revolves around her idea of the landscape. The land and nature feature prominently in her work, and you could almost argue that some of her subjects were just a pretext to capture the landscape itself – after all, she mentions how the subjects in her work were becoming smaller and smaller until they disappeared completely.
The exhibition opens with the series Faces, a selection of close-up portraits of her three children. Through the use of traditional photography (the wet-plate collodion process), the faces become landscapes themselves: textured, tangible, like a rough terrain. Making the process evident, like an imprint that memory leaves in our brain, the large format works allow us to explore the physicality of the image, with the accidents, drips and stains forming a rugged landscape.
For Immediate Family, her most acclaimed series, she photographed her children during a 10-year period. Even though none of the more provocative photographs have been selected for this show, the edited version still leaves us with an uneasy feeling. You look at the images with both awe for their incredible detail, technical ability and the clear depiction of childhood’s feelings. At the same time, the sexually charged images of children seem particularly relevant in today’s restrictive atmosphere and the feeling of awkwardness that results from looking at semi-naked children will resonate with more than one spectator. It is here that lays the power of her work. Only a mother could capture these images and it is now in the eye of the beholder to decide whether these defiant children are just posing for the camera or decidedly provocative.
The series Deep South is Mann at her most comfortable. The images are closer to painting than photography itself, with the fog creating an eerie atmosphere, the process becoming more important than the final result and the trees seeming brushstrokes on a canvas. The gallery mentions that the landscapes are ‘steeped in historical significance’ however that seems irrelevant since there is no direct reference to their provenance, but instead appeal to our inner-most fear of nature.
In What Remains, Mann was allowed access to the University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Centre. The forensic scientists left the corpses outside to study the decomposition process. Mann was in charge of recording this with her camera. Beyond the perhaps controversial nature of the images, this is yet another exploration of landscape. She captures the bodies in their decomposition stage, merging visually and physically with the landscape, becoming one with it. The bodies are shown scarred and rugged, just like the trees in her landscapes.
As it happens with most retrospectives, the curator seems to be restricted by the space as well as the need to present her work in chronological order. And although the boundaries in Mann’s work are blurred by her interest in the landscape, the exhibition perhaps suffers from this excised version of each series and leaves the viewer wondering whether indeed this is a pick of the best.
