Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings

Posted by Surplus Camera Gear on 7th Nov 2018

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings, June 30 – September 23, 2018
PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM

I was fortunate to catch Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings on its last day at the Peabody Essex Museum back in September. I’d long admired her work in book form going back to my days at the Maine Photographic Workshop—where I briefly met her in 1986—but had never seen her work up on a wall in a gallery setting.

If you are able I would highly recommend seeing the exhibit at one of the other venues:

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, November 20, 2018–February 10, 2019
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 3–May 27, 2019
Jeu de Paume, Paris, June 17–September 22, 2019
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, October 19, 2019–January 12, 2020

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings — Family

Many of the pictures are intimate, some are fiction and some are fantastical, but most are of ordinary things that every mother has seen — Sally Mann, 1992

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings — Family

The Land: Since my my place and its story were givens, it remained for me to find those metaphors: encoded, half-forgotten clues within the southern landscape — Sally Mann 2015

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings — The Land

The Land: Since my my place and its story were givens, it remained for me to find those metaphors: encoded, half-forgotten clues within the southern landscape — Sally Mann 2015

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings, Peabody Essex Museum

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings — The Land

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings, Peabody Essex Museum

Abide with Me: What were any of us thinking? Why did we never ask the questions? That’s the mystery of it—our blindness and our silence — Sally Mann, 2015

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings, Peabody Essex Museum

Last Measure: Does the earth remember? Do these fields, upon which unspeakable carnage occurred, where unknowable numbers of bodies are buried, bear witness in some way? — Sally Mann, 2015

Proud Flesh: Larry and I began this work of exploring what it means to grow older, to let the sunshine fall voluptuously on a still-beautiful form, and to spend quiet afternoons together again. No phone, no kids, two fingers of bourbon, the smell of the ether, the two of us—still in love, still at work — Sally Mann, 2009