ART
Sally Mann |
Written 30 January |
Saturday 16 October, 11:00Galerie Karsten Greve, 75003 [map]Sally Mann
The Karsten Greve Gallery presents an important exhibition devoted to the American Photographer
Sally Mann, born in Lexington, Virginia in 1951. This exhibition will present different stages of the artist’s work in the form of a retrospective through photographs taken since the middle of the 1990’s until now. (Deep South 1996-1998), (Battlefields 2000-2002), (Faces 2004) and (Proud Flesh 2004-2009).
From the start, Sally Mann has remained true to her principle of photographing her personal environment, whether it involves the landscapes of the southern United States where she has lived since her childhood, or her family. She evokes universal themes such as childhood, memory and the relationship with death. Pushing the limits of a simple representation of reality, she exposes certain details in order to move towards something more universal and gives us images in which time seems to be suspended. Her works are characterised most often by silent contemplation.
This timeless character is significant of the landscapes she produced at the end of the 1990’s with the series “Deep South”. Photographing her region of birth, the deep south of the United States, Sally Mann introduces us to landscapes that are seemingly heavenly for their abundance and luxurious vegetation that also reflect gentleness and the climate’s mugginess. However, this landscape, which is empty of any human presence, also evokes the troubled past of this region, which was a former land of slavery.
Since 2004, Sally Mann has with the series “Proud Flesh”, conducted a photographic study of her husband Larry’s body, photographing sections of his body almost in the manner of landscapes. Through her photographic approach she reveals the profound relationship between a man and a woman that unveils emotions ranging from frankness to eroticism and tenderness to brutality; the body’s extracts reflecting another battlefield.
