Julie Blackmon: Fake Weather

Robert Mann Gallery is pleased to announce “Fake Weather,” debuting new works by Julie Blackmon in her fourth solo show with the gallery. Blackmon’s pictures, said the Los Angeles Times, are “absorbing, meticulously orchestrated slices of ethnographic theater ... that abound with tender humor but also shrewdly subtle satire.” Her themes have focused on the social, cultural and familial, but the tumultuous political landscape of the United States and world have challenged Blackmon to turn her eye to the political world for the first time, and the results make an impact. 

“When I began taking pictures,” Blackmon says, “ I was primarily interested in documenting the lives of my five sisters and myself as we raised families in the Ozarks in the 21st century. My goal was to capture the mythical in the ordinary, and I gradually began introducing narrative strands into the photos, hoping to create visual fables that reflected deeper truths. I wanted to explore and critique the way we live today, so there have always been snakes lurking in the backyard gardens of my imagination—someone once told me that my work was one part Norman Rockwell and one part Norman Bates.”

Blackmon’s latest works retain her signature combination of compelling visual allure and subtly off-kilter incidents—in some cases with a more serious edge, as the artist probes the fever dreams of a restless nation. Still hewing to her deliberately restricted, yet ever expressive, palette of subjects—jungle-gym jealousies, yard-sale intrigues and sibling smackdowns—Blackmon finds ample room to explore political developments. The title piece of the exhibition, “Fake Weather,” provokes an immediate laugh with its portrait of two reluctant, exacerbated subjects. But it also comments on the nation’s temperature—as both its climate and politics heat up—and responds to a time in which obvious realities are described as false. Finally, with a sly wink at the audience, the artist reveals the backstage mechanisms that give shape to her visions. 

Julie Blackmon lives and works in Springfield, Missouri. The artistʼs work is included in numerous museums and public collections including that of the George Eastman House; Nelson Atkins Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; the Portland Art Museum; and the Musée Français de la Photographie in Bièvres, France. She was named American Photo's "Emerging Photographer of 2008" and one of PDN's "30 New and Emerging Photographers" in 2007, and has been the recipient of various awards including first prize from The Santa Fe Center for Photography in the Project Competition in 2006. Blackmon has published two monographs, her first of which sold out, Domestic Vacations (Radius Press, 2008) and Homegrown (Radius Press co-published with Robert Mann Gallery, 2014). 

For additional information and press materials, contact the gallery by telephone (212.989.7600) or by email (mail@robertmann.com).

The Guardian

Julie Blackmon: Fake Weather – in pictures

"The Missouri-based photographer’s staged scenes and street scenes offer a glimpse into an unpolished and surreal side of contemporary America"

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PDN Photo of the day

Julie Blackmon's Fake Weather

"In “Fake Weather,” a new show opening today and running until December 2 at Robert Mann Gallery in New York City, Julie Blackmon continues her antic and darkly sweet exploration of family life, using carefully orchestrated images to comment on the chaos and humor of the domestic world. In her new work, Blackmon ranges beyond the houses and yards where her earlier series focused, presenting images set in small towns —a grey-haired woman waits outside a beauty shop, a girl pushes a baby stroller down a chalk-covered sidewalk beside a building advertising new and used guns."

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The EyE of Photography

Julie Blackmon: Fake Weather

"Fake Weather is a series of new works by Julie Blackmon. Again here, she focuses on the social, cultural and familial, but also the tumultuous political landscape of the United States. Themes that have challenged Blackmon to turn her eye to the political world for the first time, and the results make an impact."

Click here to continue reading.