Robert Mann Gallery

What did you want to do first once school let out for summer? Was it walks on the boardwalk? A car ride with the windows down? Putting work aside until September? Robert Mann Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition, School’s Out for Summer, a collection of images encompassing both twentieth and twenty-first century photographs by over fifteen artists. The images reflect the celebration of vacation after the final school bell rings for the year. A sense that adventure awaits traverses through the images, from the sprawling West Coast beaches to the quiet shores of Wales making a final stop on top of a makeshift slide into a kiddie pool in America’s heartland. The selection of images suggest that without the schedule of school or with a few days off from work, loved ones can relax and enjoy their time together. The images explore the interactions between people and water, with a surprise wave crashing over a dock onto unsuspecting kids, to a tensioned filled tug-of-war game by the ocean, or the explosion of a fire hydrant providing respite on the hot summer streets of New York City. School’s Out for Summer presents a mix of moments that have the spirit of summer holidays at their core. From the glorious beaches of Brazil in Sandra Cattaneo Adorno’s lush gold hued image from the series Águas de Ouro to the dreamy summer ride we imagine for the subject of Cig Harvey’s Surf Trip, to the pure joy we can almost hear from the revelers in Jeff Brouws’s Waveswinger. School’s Out for Summer also features the work of Joe Deal, Larry Fink, Ed Sievers, Ann Treer, Henry Wessel and Weegee among others. The online exclusive exhibition runs from June 18 - through September 2, 2024. For additional information and press materials, please contact the gallery at mail@robertmann.com

Robert Mann Gallery is pleased to announce the online exhibition, Dear Mom, in honor of Mother's Day. The exhibition includes tender photographs by Holly Andres, Julie Blackmon, Cig Harvey, Ann Treer, Ed Sievers, and more.

Robert Mann Gallery is pleased to announce our return to Chelsea, the vibrant art community where we first relocated to in 1999. For the inaugural exhibition in our new gallery space, and in celebration of our 25+ year relationship with artist Jeff Brouws, Robert Mann Gallery is pleased to announce Jeff Brouws: Just About Everything, Someplace Else, on view from October 17 - December 6, 2024. This exhibition will showcase a selection of Brouws’s iconic photographs alongside several previously unseen works. In Just About Everything, Someplace Else, Jeff Brouws brings together images that act as artifacts of history while continuing to speak to themes that resonant today: a sense of abandonment, loneliness, alienation, and the influence of technological change, in essence all suggestive of an American Dream that isn’t quite what it seems. In this show Brouws incorporates photographs from several series including his Ed Ruscha-influenced Language in the the Landscape, the Hopperesque images from the series Approaching Nowhere, and the discarded and franchised elements of our collective commercial environments that pay homage to, and update, the New Topographics. Throughout his career Brouws has created a rich archive with an emphasis on documenting our built environment, a practice that he terms “visual anthropology.” In preserving the remnants of the American landscape he has created a photographic anthology that allows us to see the impact of economic and social forces as they play out, especially across non-urban areas of America. In these images a connecting thread is the highway, a central character and place upon which so much of American life unfolds. Brouws's photographs are included in the permanent collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The J. Paul Getty Museum, among others. His monographs include Approaching Nowhere (2006), Readymades (2003), Inside the Live Reptile Tent (2001), and Highway: Americaʼs Endless Dream (1998). He is also the co-editor and co-creator of Various Small Books: Referencing Various Small Books by Ed Ruscha (2013, MIT Press). Born in 1955, Brouws lives in Stanfordville, New York. Please contact the gallery to arrange a viewing, or view the exhibition online, from October 17 - December 6, 2024. For additional information and press materials, please contact the gallery by email (mail@robertmann.com).

“FEAST is a primal roar telling me not to waste a second, to be here now. Look at this. Experience this. Feel this. The pictures say that time is the only currency.” -Cig Harvey Robert Mann Gallery is pleased to present Cig Harvey’s exhibition, FEAST, opening on Saturday, February 10, and on view through April 5, 2024. The exhibition approaches the heart of the human condition, where stories hold secrets as dark as a chocolate-frosted cake pressed with blackberries. FEAST becomes a sensory experience of apples gracefully descending the tree and wisteria engulfing a lady swaying in satin. Harvey delves into the science of color and explores taste and perception. The result is a photographic experience of wonder, unraveling the intricacies of how we engage with sight, light and feeling. Rooted in specific moments, her work transforms the mundane into a captivating conversation, for instance by exploring the quiet life of the coy and poisoned red berries no one dares to pick, while their color and texture tempt us to do just that. Harvey introduces a delectable discourse in FEAST with the inclusion of cake—a staple at gatherings ranging from birthdays to weddings and funerals—encompassing time, mortality, and the senses. She joyously celebrates maximalist cakes, drawing inspiration from the imaginative, homemade creations of loved-ones. These cakes boast multiple layers, lavish frosting, and a decadent overflow of fudge. Within FEAST, Harvey plays with the placement of this treat, whether stowed inside a trunk floating down the river, passionately smashed upon a table, or glowing warmly with flickering candles amidst the embrace of darkness. Concurrent with her solo exhibition at Robert Mann Gallery, Harvey is featured in a group exhibition at New York’s Fotografiska entitled Human / Nature. This exhibition delves into the complex and symbiotic connection between humanity and the natural world.

 Harvey's work is included in permanent collections of major institutions including the Library of Congress, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; the International Museum of Photography and Film at the George Eastman House, Rochester, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine; and the distinguished corporate collection of JPMorgan Chase. Harvey earned distinction as one of the 2021 recipients of the Farnsworth’s Maine in America Award and was also awarded the title of the 2018 Prix Virginia Laureate, a prestigious international photography accolade in Paris. In 2023, Eat Flowers, a documentary film about Harvey by River Finlay, premiered at film festivals worldwide winning the Special Jury Prize at the Santa Fe International Film Festival for Documentary Short. In FEAST, Harvey aspires for viewers to share in her initial experience upon discovering the images—the sensation that accompanies bearing witness to something rare. The palpable blend of desire and neon vigor in photographs encapsulates a lifetime of journeys, hopes, and perpetual curiosity. Cig Harvey will join the gallery for a reception to celebrate the opening of FEAST on Saturday, February 10, from 4 - 6. The artist lives and works in rural Maine.

In honor of reaching this significant milestone, Robert Mann Gallery is pleased to present, Michael Kenna: Celebrating Fifty Years, with the presentation of over twenty photographs made around the globe and selected for this exhibition by the artist himself. This exhibition coincides with the release of his new monograph Photographs and Stories. Michael Kenna: Celebrating Fifty Years exhibits a beautiful reflection of Kenna’s personal vision of the world spanning half of a century. The exhibition journeys from panoramic views of Northamptonshire, England, to the desert dunes of Merzouga, Morocco, to the tranquil coasts of Hokkaido, Japan, to Venice, Italy to name a few. Kenna’s keen eye radiates through the long exposures of morning clouds and the motif of birds gliding through the sky. Kenna beautifully captures the geometrics of ancient Stonehenge as well as seaweed farms and a lone-fishnet structure in Biwa Lake. The selection navigates places both foreign and familiar through black and white scenes full of spacious calm and the guiding air of the artist himself. All of the prints are beautiful renderings, traditional silver prints made in the darkroom and toned using Sepia by the artist. Kenna’s renowned pairing of natural landscapes and human-made structures, captured as the sun peaks over the horizon or in twilight, ask viewers to consider what lies just beyond the visible. Kenna’s own curation properly reflects his intricate skill and sense of adventure with views of the city-that-never-sleeps across from medieval Pacentro to the icy sheets of 
St. Petersburg, Russia juxtaposing the misty, rolling mountains of Yunnan, at the most eastern tip of the Himalayas. Kenna's photographs have been featured in over four hundred and fifty solo exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world, and are in over one hundred permanent institutional collections. His contemplative and transportive photographs have clearly resonated with those who have a love of natures’ inherent beauty and the sublime. Michael Kenna: Celebrating Fifty Years will debut at the gallery on December 14, 2023 with a reception ad book signing with the artist from 6-8pm. The monograph Photographs and Stories contains one image for each year of Kenna's photography journey, beginning in 1973 (when he enrolled in the Banbury School of Art). Following the “Photographs” section of the book is “Stories,” in which the artist discloses how the photography relates to his own life’s situation at the time. The exhibition will be on view, by appointment, through February 2, 2024.

“No matter how high it soars, New York is a pedestrian city at heart. Millions of feet pound its pavement daily, funneling bodies through a street grid of harsh angles. Each block is a fleeting assemblage of time, technology, and politics, hurtling through history, embodying the fragmentary and often outrageous nature of urban flux.” - Jennifer Williams    Jennifer Williams: Deconstructing New York, on view from October 28 through December 8, 2023, at Robert Mann Gallery, will include both large and small scale multi-layered photographic constructions that transform neighborhoods into immersive representations of urban change.     Williams’ fourth solo exhibition with the gallery includes a large-scale unique collage spanning a full wall, with buildings jutting in every direction, depicting Hudson Yard’s startling transformation from industrial remnant to towering megaproject. In addition, twenty small relief constructions mounted on wood panels explore Midtown's dense, museum-like inventory of stone and glass skyscraper edifices. Also on view will be Williams’ new series, The Decorated Shed: East Village and Lower East Side, which explores “Streeteries,” the structures that took over the city streets during the pandemic and might be here to stay. The images isolate the structures in space calling attention to their unique shapes, colors, and decoration, focusing on one of the most dramatic changes to New York’s streets in recent years.     Williams’ photography style chronicles a pedestrian-eye view of New York City. Her merged, interpretive shapes reflect a transformation of experiences into memories, and then into visual representations. In her unique relief constructions, Williams prints the same image over and over, cutting and layering to create dimension within two-dimensional photographs. The result is a collection of detailed and colorful renderings which call our attention to the idiosyncrasies in architecture spanning past decades to recent years. By reinstating the dimensionality of the real world into photographs, Williams brings the buildings closer to us, emphasizing the inconceivable distance between pedestrian and towering architecture.    Jennifer Williams received her MFA from Goldsmiths College in London and her BFA from Cooper Union in New York, where she currently teaches. Her work has been widely exhibited throughout the country including the Queens Museum, The Akron Art Museum, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.  Honors include the 2018-2019 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, Queens Council for the Arts grants, A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship and the NARS Foundation International Artist Residency. Her work has been featured in publications including The New Yorker, Excerpt Magazine, Title Magazine, Photography Quarterly, and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. She lives and works in New York City.  Please contact the gallery to arrange a viewing in person or view the exhibition online beginning October 28, 2023. For additional information and press materials, please contact the gallery at mail@robertmann.com

In this digital era of technology, millions of images exist primarily on people’s phones and rarely transform into a tangible object or physical expression of that image. Images are largely captured, shared and viewed in digital form. For our opening show this fall, Robert Mann Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition Nonpareil which highlights a select group of artists that employ various techniques, both modern and historic to render unique and tactile works of art rooted in photography. Among the works in this intimate exhibition are pieces created by artists who have utilized 19th century processes such as the cyanotype, daguerreotype and the use of hand-coloring. Some have implemented 20th century techniques such as the photogram, split-toning and collage, while others have devised hybrid or home brewed methods of development and presentation. All of the images in the show are connected by a common thread, each artist has created photography based art work that is truly one of a kind. Among the works on view will be a large scale daguerreotype by Jerry Spagnoli, a split-toned silver print by Richard Misrach, a photogram by Leslie Gill and a cyanotype by Elijah Gowin. Other artists whose work will be included in the exhibition are Binh Danh, Lois Guarino, Laurent Millet, Luis Gonzalez Palma, Susan Rankaitis, Doug & Mike Starn and Jennifer Williams. Please contact the gallery to arrange a viewing in person or view the exhibition online beginning September 7, 2023. For additional information and press materials, please contact the gallery at mail@robertmann.com.

Viewing by appointment. Please contact the gallery via email: mail@robertmann.com to schedule

Viewing by appointment. Please contact the gallery via email: mail@robertmann.com to schedule

Viewing by appointment. Please contact the gallery via email: mail@robertmann.com to schedule