Sally Mann: American Photographer #5
5. Time and Memory
Sally Mann is a renowned photographer celebrated for her haunting and captivating images. On one occasion, she expressed that she found elements of mortality and the idea of death in the picturesque views on her farm, which she observed daily. Her photographs frequently explore themes such as death, aging, the delicate and uncertain nature of life, and the instability within her family.
In the early 2000s, when looking at the collection of Mann’s photographs, it became evident that she held the belief that true enjoyment of life is possible only when we confront the idea of death without fear. She was of the opinion that experiencing loss or the absence of something actually helps us value and appreciate what we currently possess even more.
In 2004, Mann completed a series of enigmatic and mysterious portraits featuring her young children. These large-scale portraits, known as “Faces”, were captured up close with a soft focus and exposure times of up to three minutes. They evoked an indescribable sense of imagery reminiscent of 19th-century postmortem photography. Two years later, she created several unforgettable self-portraits that hinted at themes of fragmentation, pain, suffering, and aging.
Additionally, Mann photographed her husband, Larry, who was dealing with muscular dystrophy. While she had been regularly photographing him since they first met in 1969, it wasn’t until the early 2000s that she began documenting the physical changes Larry was undergoing. During this period, his body was experiencing muscular atrophy and significant suffering.
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She titled this collection “Proud Flesh”, drawing inspiration from a medical term describing the tissue of saddle sores on a horse. Although she usually opts for descriptive titles, for Larry’s photographs, she sought inspiration from a wide range of literary and artistic sources, including Greek mythology, classical art, the Bible, and her favorite authors such as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Eudora Welty.
In the year 2000, Mann photographed cadavers and named her collection “Body Farm”. These deceased bodies were donated to the University of Tennessee for scientific research. Experts in forensic medicine at the Body Farm conducted studies on how deceased bodies decompose in various settings, including open air, underwater, encased in plastic, and even when partially buried.
Around the same time, she exhumed the body of a popular breed of dog, a greyhound, to observe the condition of this decaying and disintegrating corpse. Through these endeavors, all the work reflected the fragile nature of memory and recollection, the body’s susceptibility to the effects of time, and the indescribable separation between the physical and the spiritual.
Sally Mann’s belief, ultimately, is that life revolves around loving, creating, and cherishing the present moment each day. In her memoir, she writes about a specific phrase, “What Thou Lovest Well Remains” from Ezra Pound’s Canto 81, which is carved into the gravestone above the place where they lay the ashes of their family. This phrase evokes the enduring spirit of love, an enduring testament to cherished memories that remain alive within the annals of time and memory.
