Mary Mattingly, A Silence Contained for Years, 2018
Mary Mattingly in Observer
Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography recently opened at the Milwaukee Art Museum following its run at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The exhibition, which includes photographs by Mary Mattingly, gathers 140 works spanning 180 years, exploring the American mining industry.
"Mary Mattingly’s A Silence Contained for Years (2018)...draws the eye to piles of untold, curiously colored stones. The piece grew out of her research into cobalt, which began with the battery in her own camera and led her through Michigan’s Eagle Mine to the Congo. It’s a real-life collage: a wooden crate topped with ore samples. Yellow hoses and strings conjure both the systems this ore will flow through and the corkboards of movie conspiracy theorists, though when it comes to mining, the conspiracies all seem to turn out to be real." -Dan Duray for Observer