Portfolios
Mary Manning Sees Gifts in the Everyday
The photographer’s collages chronicle friends, family, and community in New York.
This article originally appeared in Aperture, issue 250, “We Make Pictures in Order to Live,” spring 2023.
Mary Manning’s favorite color is green. In the artist’s photographs, we are shown an everywhereness of green. Green is neighborly, the most charitable color, according to Mary. Green is a pile of fallen ginkgo leaves fanning out on a car windshield. Green is the long open legs of a ladder. Green is the color of friends gathering in a beloved New York park, since destroyed by the city. Green is Nicole’s studio T-shirt, Maia’s sweater backstage, little Lucky’s winter coat, Emma’s snail. Even Mel’s denim looks green from Mary’s point of view, or maybe green is what happens to the viewer’s gaze when spending time in Mary’s world. Green is what happens!
Mary’s work takes place at the threshold of joy and recall. The instant is stretched; the instant is what we wait for, like tulips come spring or a clean neck after a fresh haircut. The instant, as authored by Mary, is the first dance at a wedding, and other similar traditions that place an importance on affection and holding on, and how wonderful it feels to get dressed up. Because acknowledged in Mary’s photographs, over and over, is the soft, conversational power of clothing. How a silk slip is so hospitable to that late summer breeze. How a dancer’s arm is so compatible with a cap sleeve. How sneakers recur in Mary’s images—often a record of comfort, wear, color, praise. Yes, praise. What is it about Mary’s photographs that sounds like the words “I like your shoes”?
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In one image, the cast of a play has returned to the stage for the final curtain call. On the right, a pair of audience hands is clapping enthusiastically. Applause and other responses that take place with genuine warmth (hugs, holding hands, smiling with your eyes closed) are all the subject of Mary’s curiosity, which seems especially devoted to varieties of trust and closeness: good company on a coffee break, well-timed portraits of camera-shy friends.
In another photograph, a mother is joined on each side by her two daughters. “Happy Birthday” is being sung, the cake is on its way, and the glow—as seen by Mary—is somehow green. This everyday chronicle of waving your loved ones over and making a wish with a roomful of witnesses is central to Mary’s work. As central as a favorite color.
“Favorite” holds many meanings for the artist. A surprise enchantment that calms the senses like a swan or someone else’s bookshelves seen from street level. Other favorites might flow from the simplest acts, such as looking down (and seeing beautiful vestibule tile) or looking away from the art (and seeing a child at the Guggenheim who is just tall enough to peer over the edge of the museum’s quarter-mile-of-concrete ramp). No longer needing to stand on one’s tiptoes is a consequential moment in life. It’s also ordinary and easily lost or passed over if you aren’t paying attention. But Mary is. Mary’s work is a document of . . . being. Of being!
Like the mother who asks her daughters to help blow out her birthday candles, Mary’s photographs are testimonies, not just of togetherness but of sweet, good-sized customs (arriving with a bouquet; bringing a big bedsheet to the beach; parents at an art opening). Even—or especially—the artist’s still life imagery favors themes of observance and cheer, and the ways in which nature counsels us, day after day. An ovation of thin trees marks winter’s incoming frost. A variety of rose is called “love.” A single red balloon in the woods seems to say, You’ve arrived. Party’s here! Mary’s poetic sensitivity toward story is full of bewilderment and magic. Everything is right there, up close, and yet a piece of metal wrapped around a pole looks like hidden treasure. Flowers out of focus are friendly ghosts. A New York vanity plate with the word “JOYS” could be read as “New York JOYS,” which is one way of thinking about Mary’s project. “New York Joys” by Mary Manning.
Courtesy the artist