Sally Mann, "Hephaestus," 2008. Gelatin silver print, 15 x 13 1/2 inches
Sally Mann, "Was Ever Love," 2009. Gelatin silver print, 15 x 13 1/2 inchesThese were two of my favorite pictures from her series Proud Flesh. This series is particularly powerful, especially these two images, because they deal with the emotional weight and the physical suffering that families endure when someone has a degenerative disease, like muscular dystrophy. The emotional turmoil associated with these images makes them very intimate in a sad and strange way. This series became even more interesting to me once I watched her movie and I heard her say that young photographers should take pictures of things and people that matter to them or they won't make good art and even more so when she said that Larry (her husband) was always willingly to model for her (even with his poor health) and she wasn't sure if it was right to ask him to do so. The vulnerability, affection, and the fragility of life that this series addresses makes these images very powerful and very easy to connect with emotionally.
Detail, Untitled (Self-Portraits)Ambrotype (unique collodion wet-plate positive on black glass), with sandarac varnish. (15 x 13 ½ in.)
Gelatin silver print, 15 x 13 ½ in.
Mortality both scares and interests me, so I really enjoyed Mann's What Remains and Self Portraits because they depict her emotional struggle and fascination with mortality. I feel that Sally Mann has successfully taken the exploration of the vulnerable and fragile state of the human life and body to a level that other artists have failed to achieve. I was also interested in her process, specifically how she used the collodion wet plate process. Mann used the word 'serendipitous' to describe it, because the 'errors' of her negatives made her prints more beautiful and interesting. In the movie, she talked about how fragile the negatives were and how easily they acquired scratches and dust. I felt that the fragility of the process had interesting (and possibly intentional) connections to her focus on mortality. I also thought it was interesting that she hoped she never mastered the process; that these errors only add to the aesthetic of her work.
I also thought it was good planning on her part to include the biographical video at the end of the show because it really made me appreciate and relate to her photos and her struggle a lot more than had I only viewed her photos and read her artist statements. This was a great show and I plan on returning for a longer visit.
Mortality both scares and interests me, so I really enjoyed Mann's What Remains and Self Portraits because they depict her emotional struggle and fascination with mortality. I feel that Sally Mann has successfully taken the exploration of the vulnerable and fragile state of the human life and body to a level that other artists have failed to achieve. I was also interested in her process, specifically how she used the collodion wet plate process. Mann used the word 'serendipitous' to describe it, because the 'errors' of her negatives made her prints more beautiful and interesting. In the movie, she talked about how fragile the negatives were and how easily they acquired scratches and dust. I felt that the fragility of the process had interesting (and possibly intentional) connections to her focus on mortality. I also thought it was interesting that she hoped she never mastered the process; that these errors only add to the aesthetic of her work.
I also thought it was good planning on her part to include the biographical video at the end of the show because it really made me appreciate and relate to her photos and her struggle a lot more than had I only viewed her photos and read her artist statements. This was a great show and I plan on returning for a longer visit.
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