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The way of all flesh -- then what? |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Friday, 03 September 2004 |
BY CHUCK MYERS
Knight Ridder News Service
A visit to the latest photography show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., might leave you feeling as if you just spent time whistling past the graveyard.
Through the centuries, artists have offered a variety of creative interpretations of death. Many have cast it as glorious, heroic, even romantic. Others have used blunt imagery to express horrors connected with dying, usually tied specifically to an event, such as war.
Few, however, have explored what comes after the final breath -- religious considerations aside.
One artist, Sally Mann, has done just that through her engaging photography.
Mann's latest photographic work on the nature of death serves as the basis for a major exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery. ''Sally Mann: What Remains'' features more than 150 images by the artist, divided into five distinct sections.
A native of Lexington, Va., Mann creates imagery that rocks the human psyche, but always with a certain poetic quality.
Best known for Immediate Family, her startling, intimate family portrait of her three children published in 1992, Mann approaches her art with an honest and unflinching eye. With her photos devoted to mortality and death, there's no sense of lasting memorial or musing about spirituality.
''It's such an organic event -- so fundamental,'' Mann said during a visit to the exhibit. ``That's what I was trying to do, exactly, demystify it.''
In many respects, the show's five parts become a series of micro displays. The first section, ''Matter Lent,'' represents the genesis of the project, which began with an intensely personal event -- the death of a beloved family pet, a greyhound named Eva.
Mann had a taxidermist remove Eva's skin, and she later photographed it hanging from a chord. In one photo, the dog's remains cling vertically, much like a well-worn coat that an owner simply can't part with. In another view, Eva almost looks alive, as if simply attached to a leash.
Mann produced the images as wet-collodian prints. Invented in 1851, the time-consuming process involves creating prints from negatives exposed on glass plates coated with collodian. The resulting effect is often illusionistic, even ethereal.
The second section presents by far the most disconcerting images in the show -- views of human bodies in various states of decomposition. Taken at a forensic study site, the photographs detail the process by which nature reclaims the human form after death.
Landscape images make up the middle sections of the display. Mann revisited the American Civil War battlefield at Antietam, Md., exploring through her lens the lasting tortured essence that still haunts the area more than 140 years later.
One touchstone reference for Mann when producing the Antietam pictures was photographs taken by Mathew Brady's photographers shortly after the engagement in September 1862. Union and Confederate forces suffered approximately 23,000 casualties at Antietam, making the battle the single bloodiest day in U.S. history.
The last group of photographs focuses on the faces of Mann's children, shown in extreme close-up. When considered within the context of the death theme, the final series of images ties the show together: What remains after death completes the cycle of life for adults? Their children.
''Sally Mann: What Remains'' remains at the Corcoran Gallery through Sept. 6. It then embarks on a national tour.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/9550742.htm |
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