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Voices on Art-Museum of Fine Arts, Houston-Sarah Kennel-Flashes of the Finite: Sally Mann’s Family Pictures

On May 23, 2019, for our series Voices on Art, in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Art This Week Productions filmed this talk by Sarah Kennel titled “Flashes of the Finite: Sally Mann’s Family Pictures”. Sarah is the Byrne Family Curator of Photography, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, and co-curator of “Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings”.

This talk was filmed in conjunction with the exhibition Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings, on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 3-May 27, 2019.

From the MFAH website–“Between 1985 and 1994, photographer Sally Mann transformed the ordinary moments of childhood into extraordinary pictures by turning her lens onto her family, especially her three children, as they played and relaxed at their family’s summer cabin on the banks of Virginia’s Maury River.

The photographs, many of which were published in the 1992 book Immediate Family, explore the pleasures and perils of a free-range childhood and chart the sometimes rocky path toward adolescence. They also unleashed a controversy over their depiction of nudity, thrusting Mann and her work into the broader culture wars of the 1990s.

This talk looks at the genesis, and the enduring beauty and power, of Mann’s family pictures, examining their role as a cultural touchstone for issues such as childhood, motherhood, and the boundaries between public and private.”

Thanks to Sarah for allowing us to film the talk. Thanks also to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, especially Trey Ferguson, for their help in recording this talk.


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