Sally Mann: Immediate Family

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