Cynthia Payne

© Sally Mann. Photo: Rob McKeever, Courtesy Gagosian. In a storied career spanning nearly fifty years, the photographer Sally Mann has known no shortage of either acclaim or controversy. Her latest exhibit at Gagosian, to light, and then return—, shows work as new, serious, and beautiful as anything she ever

Seated female figure with tablet on lap Mesopotamia, Neo-Sumerian Ur III period, ca. 2112–2004 BC. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Vorderasiatisches Museum. Photo by Olaf M. Teßmer. AT A MOMENT when it is difficult to imagine human existence fifty years from now, it can be an enormous pleasure, even a revelation,

  Louise Bourgeois, Fallen Woman (Femme Maison), 1946-47. Private collection, New York. Louise Bourgeois, Femme-Maison, 1946-47. Private collection, New York. I DIDN’T KNOW a painting could make me feel as if I were falling. It happened for the first time when I saw an untitled 1948 painting by Louise Bourgeois