Australian photographer Murray Fredericks has spent 15 years photographing Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, a massive salt lake in the Australian outback, which is usually a dry salt pan. (His 2009 documentary film Salt was made there.) On view at the Robert Mann Gallery through April 14, Vanity, his first exhibition in the United States, includes photographs taken on and around the lake: A mirror is a recurring element, positioned so that the viewer’s gaze is directed “out and away from ourselves, into the environment,” in works intended to turn viewers’ attention toward nature and the insignificance of human beings. While his photographs might be described as sublime, they upend the conventions of landscape photography.
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