Immediate Family"These are photographs of my children....Many of these pictures are intimate, some are fictions and some are fantastic, but most are of ordinary things every mother has seen. I take pictures when they are bloodied or sick or naked or angry. They dress up, they pout and posture, they paint their bodies, they dive like otters in the dark river."--Sally Mann, from the Introduction Taken against the Arcadian backdrop of her woodland home in Virginia, Sally Mann's extraordinary, intimate photographs of her children-- Emmett, Jessie, and Virginia-- reveal truths that embody the individuality of her immediate family and ultimately take on a universal quality. Mann states that her work is "about everybody's memories, as well as their fears," a theme echoed by Reynolds Price in his eloquent, poignantly reflective essay accompanying the photographs in Immediate Family. With sublime dignity, acute wit, and feral grace, Mann's pictures explore the eternal struggle for autonomy-- the holding on, and the breaking away. This is the stuff of which Greek dramas are made: impatience, terror, self-discovery, self-doubt, pain, vulnerability, role-playing, and a sense of immortality, all of which converge in Sally Mann's astonishing photographs. A traveling exhibition of Immediate Family, organized by Aperture, opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia in the Fall of 1992. |
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20 East acres adolescence adult AFTERWORD BY REYNOLDS albums already APERTURE FOUNDATION beauty black hair BOOK CENTER boxers camera Candy Cigarette child childhood complicated confirmed Contemporary Art cousins crucial daughter E-mail early East 23RD Street eccentric Emmett emotion essay face fact FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS father fear feral film fleeting friends GALLERY gifts grace grandmother grim eyes grin Hamm heat hide hold Houk imaginative Immediate Family instant Jessie Mann LARRY least lens lives madman Mann's maternal memory middle-class MILLERTON Modern Art mother Museum of Modern never North Carolina older brothers parental families past Peter Bradford Phone photographs by Sally photographs in Immediate pictures explore piercing dark eyes posed reality recall record regret REYNOLDS PRICE Rodwell Sally Mann self-possessed sizable smile snapshots stood story survived tenacious themes told truths uncles viewer's Virginia visible vital wait warm watch who'd Winston wore a look York