To open the fall 2025 season, Robert Mann Gallery presents The Bridges of Michael Kenna, on view until October 18, 2025.
Bridges span rivers, connect cities, and carry us over what once seemed impassable. Where once there was only a divide, a river too wide, a ravine too deep now there is a line drawn through space. We drive over bridges, walk across them, sometimes without even thinking. Yet Michael Kenna impressively photographs these bridges stretching across the globe in a unique light of the feat of human construction through time.
Kenna’s first show with Robert Mann Gallery opened in 1997 around the time the movie, The Bridges of Madison County was released; a moving love story about a photographer on an assignment to shoot historic bridges. Kenna shares this fascination in capturing these structures, “Bridge structures are usually geometric and stationary with straight lines, verticals, horizontals and other angular constructs. The universe is constantly moving, flowing organic, uncontrollable and unpredictable. The abstract relationship between the two, almost like yin and yang, can be visually stunning and continues to fascinate and attract me.”
The bridges in this exhibition cross over bodies of water, from Sydney Harbour Bridge, Study 1, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, to Brooklyn Bridge, Study 1, New York City, USA carrying multiple lanes of traffic, trains, and possibilities. While other small bridges such as Canal Bridge, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England and Ponte dei Sospiri, Venice, Italy stretch a short distance suitable only for individuals to journey across. Each bridge featured in the exhibition has its own historical significance and the possibility of one day being replaced. Kenna beautifully captures the bridge’s story, often at dawn or dusk, along with often solidifying its place in the world.
What was once the end of the road becomes a place of crossing. What was once isolation becomes relationship. The landscape is no longer defined by separation, but by the possibility of reaching across. In The Bridges of Michael Kenna, the artist’s careful treatment of each composition is apparent from frame to frame, in which every detail is given its due consideration to express this relationship between the bridge and the land. The images in the exhibition represent over 50 years of Kenna’s exploration of this subject matter.
The Bridges of Michael Kenna is on view in conjunction with the artist’s exhibition, Japan: A Love Story, at the International Center of Photography from August 27 – September 28, 2025.
An additional reception with the artist will be held on Friday, September 26, from 6-8pm.
View the exhibition in person and online starting September 4 – October 18, 2025. Public visiting hours are Tuesday – Friday, 10am – 4pm, Saturday from 12-5pm and by appointment.
Robert Mann Gallery
508 W 26th St Suite 9F
New York, NY 10001
www.robertmann.com
