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Synopsis: Sally Mann’s ‘Immediate Family’

We are looking at Sally Mann’s ‘Immediate Family’ through March on the Photo Book Club. Luckily this book is really easy to get hold of in libraries, photobooks or from the latest publisher of a paperback version, Aperture at a good price and so I shan’t be uploading a video this time.

If you fancy getting involved and sharing your thoughts on the book then you can do so in the comments section below or in email to matt@photobookclub.org.

– Matt

Title
Immediate Family

Author
Sally Mann

Publisher
Aperture 1992

“Mann’s subjects are her small children (a boy, a girl, and a new baby), often shot when they’re sick or hurt or just naked. Nosebleeds, cuts, hives, chicken pox, swollen eyes, vomiting—the usual trials of childhood—can be alarmingly beautiful, thrillingly sensual moments in Mann’s portrait album. Her ambivalence about motherhood—her delight and despair—pushes Mann to delve deeper into the steaming mess of family life than most of us are willing to go. What she comes up with is astonishing.”
—Vince Aletti, The Village Voice

“Immediate Family, which was published in 1990, must be counted as one of the great photograph books of our time. It is a singularly powerful evocation of childhood from within and without…”
—Luc Sante, The New Republic

Out of Sorts in ‘The Valley’

To me, There is something out of sorts about the scenes in Larry  Sultan’s ‘The Valley’. And it is not the naked house guests or their crew  members that are lighting, filming, resting, and sweating around the  porn scenes.

Instead it is the homes and artifacts within them that seem out of  place. The choice of art hanging on the wall and furnishings dressing  the home all come under a new scrutiny when juxtaposed with the  writhing bodies of many fantasies now occupying ‘family spaces’. I wonder, like Sultan, whether the  real fantasy taking place here is that of the perfect American home.   Each one we enter has a similar, slightly sterile feel. We see the  pools, gazebos, patios, large sofas and TV’s that appear on the  quintessential ‘dream home checklist’ but not much else.
The addition of fictitious backdrops in gardens and living rooms creates a feeling that the each house is just part of an elaborate set for the filming of real-life.

The  personality Sultan does show us of these homes seems tired, the girls  bedroom with neglected dolls now sitting on a shelf, a drum kit  gathering dust and a bed with no sheets that has certainly seen better days. It is these rooms, kept out of view of the directors camera but picked up by Sultan’s that offer a melancholy feel to the viewing experience of the book. It reminds us of all the dreams and items once cherished as well as that which would be deemed unpleasant to others that are now gathering dust, or else pushed aside from the gaze of any possible visitors in so many homes.

These are not the locations chosen by the director, and neither are they chosen to be displayed by the home owner. Both the director and home owner want to show the same thing, a representation of success, and of a fantasy, but without any personal effects or clutter that would tarnish the ‘scene’.

– Matt Johnston