August 1, 2018
Published in 1992, Sally Mann's most notable and controversial photography series titled "Immediate Family" raised countless concerns about Mann's parenting to her three children. At the start of the decade-long project, Mann's children Emmett, Jessie, and Virginia were 6, 4, and 1 years of age. The 200 photographs of these children in states of nudity and injury that, typically, a parent sees most often with their kids. In seeing the book, people's minds ran to questions like "where does an artist draw the line?", but most importantly "where does a mother draw the line?"
Mann's work is said to illustrate the concept of danger, but untrue danger. Her work shows her children in dangerous situations that could have been or that manipulate what really occurred. At one point, Mann was confronted with this fascination and she described that her photographs act as a superstitious shield from harm that is real, compared to the harm in the photographs. A good example of this is the photograph that Mann considers to be her first "good family photo". Titled "Damaged Child", the image shows her middle child Jessie's face swollen up, like she had been beaten up. However, the reality of the picture is that bug bites, from playing with the neighbors outside, had caused the puffiness in some parts of her face. It seems as though that, as a mother, Mann is just fascinated with what is and what it could be. Artists everywhere are fascinated with the very same concept, just under less emotional or maternal terms.
In my opinion, I really do not believe Mann was doing anything wrong or harmful to her children. I do understand the concerns with putting out nude images of children into this scary world are very present in this debate. What should just be a mother making portraits of her children, turns into something that has unfortunate alarm and fear. Mann actually turned to get a professional opinion at one point, so she called the F.B.I.'s Kenneth Lanning. His advice was in simple terms, they both knew that the photographs could arouse some people, but there is not a photograph out there that does not arouse someone. Mann stated that her censoring her children in their normal, comfortable states at home would be pornographic and contradicting. Jessie, her eldest daughter, was confronted as a child for what she thought of her mom's photographs. She was completely confused why the images were considered strange or "a big deal", and disconnected herself with the statement, "But that is not my chest. Those are [just] photographs". With her children's consent and eye for something alarming, I do not think Mann's art is wrongdoing.
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I personally did not like reading this article very much. I found the paper to go from one topic to a completely different one without much ...
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