The compelling new exhibition “Kiss of the Sun” by Lee Mary Manning is united by a lack of unity. The frames range in size and in tone, as do the mats; the photographs go from little snapshots—scattered whimsically with fabrics, ephemera, and objects—to full-scale analogue prints. Despite all that variety, the works are charming for their associative moments.
“Kiss of the Sun” is on view through January 11, 2025. Manning has a way of teasing out parallel forms, shapes, and moods in a way that gets the mind to wander, pasting shots of their friends and strangers next to flowers, windows, skyscapes, interiors, park benches, overhead lights. Across the show, there’s a sense of the New York Manning calls home. Its joyful colors and homespun textures embody Canada gallery’s experimental sensibility, rooted in its early-2000s downtown artist-run origins. A process book, including outtakes and unused ephemera, launches in the new year.
Lee Mary Manning, I had a camera and wanted to change my life (2024). Courtesy of the artist and CANADA.
Manning is a photographer who doesn’t make hard distinctions between their fine art practice and the work they do for hire, from fashion editorial to party photography. They see the show, their third with Canada, as an “exploration of quiet attentiveness.” At all times, their next subject could be just around the corner. This constant, mundane documentation dates back to the photo blog they started nearly two decades ago, as a 30-something living in San Francisco. “Unchanging Window,” a kind of visual diary, saw Manning’s signature off-kilter images paired with captions that read like clues—uploaded, collage-like, on the daily, eventually earning them their first show.
Last week, we caught up with Manning who tracks their intuitive sense of style, spanning childhood Polaroids, industry assignments, websites, and gallery walls—carrying, always, a tender embrace of life.
An installation view of Lee Mary Manning’s “Kiss of the Sun.” Courtesy of the artist and CANADA. Photo: Joe DeNardo
Part of the process for this show was looking back at photos you took as a kid. Were you looking for anything specific?
The measure [used to be that the] photos would go back so far as my last show. There were boxes and boxes of photos that I hadn’t considered to include in these assemblages, and I unleashed any rule. When I opened up a box of loose photographs that contained Polaroids from my 20s, or pictures from college, or a roll of film that I took when I was 10, I started to see how my eye works. Like, Oh, a fuzzy photo of a plant—that’s not too far off from work that I make in 2024. Or an image of someone’s pant leg at a 70s-themed party in college is not too far off from the commercial work I do, or the fashion work. It was more like being willing to part with some of those prints and incorporate them into the wider selection.
So, once you signed on for this third show at Canada, did you shoot anything new for it? Or was it mostly pulling from the archive?
Shooting work for a show is never a part of my mindset. I’m just always shooting. One of my last print deadlines probably would have been mid-summer. So maybe the rolls that I was getting back then, there could’ve been something that jumped out at me as resonant that would have been included. You know, maybe I’ve been sent to do party photography, or maybe I’ve had a commercial gig for a brand, and there are outtakes from those.
I wanted to hear about your blog “Unchanging Window.” I wonder if it feels like its own sort of collage, or whether the work you make today is in the blogging spirit—diaristic, a collection of everyday scenes from your life. Where do you see it in the lineage of your work as a photographer?
It really mattered as a platform for composing these little vignettes, because it’s like, Edit, edit, edit, edit, edit.Sometimes, it’d be a really juicy day and I would have shot hundreds—at that point I was shooting digitally, so it was very fast. I’d pull through upwards of 40 pictures in one post, and sequence really quickly based on repetition or form or color. No order. It developed this muscle. When I started figuring out how to capture that same spirit in these formal framed works, it was about working on these tables. Stacks of photos, setting them out, and being like, This one. next to this one, next to this one. I started playing with scale: This one big, and then this one little next to that. Each shadow keeps building on what the blog began. I gained confidence. Like, That’s it, it’s done—post. [Laughs]
I talked to my friend who does my fine art printing, and she’s like, “It’s really fun working with you, because you’re willing to look at the range that I bring and decide right there.” She’s like, “I’ve got some clients that really linger over the decision.” And I respect that, too. Truly, whatever happens in that process is beautiful. But it gave me this sort of blind faith. I guess that’s ironic, with sight. Once it gets up on a wall and strangers come in and start looking at it, they draw their own associations. It’d be the same when I’d post something on Instagram. I guess Instagram became the blog. At the first show I made with Canada, another photographer, a friend of mine, he’s like, “I see how that became this.” He saw the evolution of how I found a way to go from digital into weird, framed and installed space.
Lee Mary Manning, Running into Nan at the Barberini (2024). Courtesy of the artist and CANADA.
Do you tend to work on pieces one at a time? Would you ever come back to add something new?
There’s rarely a big change. But I’m held to constraints by way of what I can afford in New York City. I don’t have a space outside of my home to work in, and so I have these temporary tables that I expand and contract. It’s like three or four things going, and those have to go out the door for more things to start. It gives me a small amount of time where I might really consider one of the associations or arrangements. But that’s rare. If I got too indecisive, it’d be like, Well, you could be here forever. [Gestures] All these boxes are photos. All those stacks behind me, and all these stacks in front of me. I could stop taking pictures right now and keep making work till I die.
Does that trust in your first instinct extend to other aspects of your life?
Lately I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting dressed, which is a different issue. But I think it extends to life stuff. I like what I like and feel I can go forward with that. Lately, there’s this way in which I’m trying to expand and be surprised, like, Oh, I didn’t know I liked that. That includes the things I accept about myself, which is what’s making getting dressed [hard]. It’s like, the more I allow me to be me, I get more choices.
To tie that into making work: The other thing that felt important to me about the show is that I gave myself permission to put more of myself in the work, to be more funny or joyful. It’s a pretty weird time and sincerity is not very popular.
You started in fashion; your work references dance and music and film and poetry. Has your growing proximity to the broader culture industry affected your process or subject material?
I was thinking about occupation a lot in this work. I’ve had a lot of different occupations, and quite late in my life I started being willing to identify as an artist and live as an artist. Luckily, what I do can translate into hire. But shockingly, as a really social person who loves to go to events, being the person taking pictures felt really hard. I thought, Well, they’re asking me because they want me to be me. They want me to do what I do, and it doesn’t need to look like what I think I know they want. I can show up and be useful and do the thing they want, but exactly how I would if I was just there as a guest.
Lee Mary Manning, The Unsophisticated Arts (For Mary H.) (2024). Courtesy of the artist and CANADA.
In between those pictures of people, I can turn to, you know, behind someone’s back, and they’re holding an orange, and their hand looks beautiful, and the orange is bright against their shirt. I can also take that photo, and weirdly, that photo might become a piece. The braid photo [featured in The Unsophisticated Arts (For Mary H.)] is from a 6397 launch party that I got brought in to take some “people pics.” But that braid looked absolutely perfect. I scaled it up, and then it became the slide going off the braid, and then into the tie with the musical notes. And I think that was a different event! So actually, weirdly—I only noticed it once I did the walkthrough—tons of work in the show is about, I was out working, and I made these pictures while I was working. Or I had some film at the end of a roll, and I took a picture of my brushes on my sink because I didn’t want to waste the film.
It makes me think of what you were saying earlier—about being limited by your space and using that to propel you forward. A lot of your work seems like it’s directed by a kind of utility and “making it work,” doing what you need to do to be an artist.
Yeah, utility and making it work, but also constantly paying attention. I think everyone is pretty alert to their surroundings; we live in this really fast visual culture. Everyone has a phone with a camera, and everybody can make their own identities. And, you know, everyone making images is really a beautiful thing. I’m just one little part of that, where I’m noticing things and willing to be like, Maybe someone also thinks that this brush on top of this other brush is beautiful. Little things in everyday life, and especially New York life. I don’t know. It’s, again, the faith that something I noticed will be appreciated by someone else who’s just going around, experiencing the same life.
Lee Mary Manning, Existence, Incorporated (2024). Courtesy of the artist and CANADA.
Why do you think it took you so long to make the jump from hobbyist to career photographer?
I grew up in a family where my dad was an artist—not very known and pretty dysfunctional. In my 20s and 30s, I surrounded myself with musicians and other artists and dancers. And I thought, well, someone needs to be the fan. Someone just needs to be taking pictures of it happening, excited to be there.
I also thought school was the only way into that world. I thought it was a very formal world. I especially thought, as a photographer, I had to do this very pristine thing of making editions and bodies of work that told a story. All along, I felt more kinship towards filmmakers, choreographers, and poets. I appreciated photography. I had heroes that did it. Once I started learning more, I gave myself more freedom and permission to see that what I was doing was actually a practice. Especially with the blog, people started to be like, “Why aren’t you having a show? Why aren’t you doing a book? I’m offering you these things.”
An installation view of Lee Mary Manning’s “Kiss of the Sun.” Courtesy of the artist and CANADA. Photo: Joe DeNardo
Finally, whatever inner resistance was there crumbled, and I think my ego structure was ready. I wasn’t so crippled by what other people thought about what I was doing. And I had just enough support and community—particularly in the blog world, which was a whole world prior to Instagram. That really helped with whatever confidence was lacking.
It’s interesting, what you said about someone needing to “be the fan.” Now, you’re getting brought on for work at events where you’re a peer, without a doubt, to the guests in attendance. That’s part of the draw—your relationship with the subject. It’s a trend across event photography these days. It adds an intimacy or an artfulness. But it’s a big jump from your early days. How does that feel?
I mean, I think that’s why it was so funny or resonant to look back at some of the photography I was doing when I was just a fan in those spaces. I sharpened my practice a lot by using digital cameras. It gave me the confidence to go back into analogue, where I’ve got one shot. Now I know how to lean into it. But to go back to those pictures and be like, Oh, it’s literally the same. That’s the same angle or whatever—that felt really cool. Everything happened exactly as it had to happen, and exactly at the timeline it did. I love this abundance mindset, rather than this prohibitive mindset that only certain people get to [do photography]. When people have asked for guidance or help in getting started, I’m like, “Just keep showing up. Just be yourself.” If I had continued to take pictures in a vacuum, a wider group of humans wouldn’t have seen what I was doing. People are like, “I don’t want to put my work on social media.” [Laughs] Well, it’s worked for me.
Canada is located at 60 Lispenard Street in New York.