By Suzanne Révy
As an elementary school child in the 60’s, each fall, my dad would gather the family together, bring out the Kodak projector with one or two carousels filled with slides of summer beach days and family trips for an annual slideshow. The beautiful materiality of those long ago slides hold precious memories, but I have a confession: those slideshows were a deeply boring for a small kid! In Family Fictions, one of two exhibitions currently on view at the Danforth in Framingham, Liz Albert collects and repurposes vernacular slides to open new dialogs around nostalgia and memory. The second show, Family Circle is a multi-media show which includes local photographers Lee Kilpatrick, Kristen Joy Emack, and Claudia Ruiz Gustafson in conversation with several painters and sculptors exploring the nature of family, kinship and friendship. Family Fictions is on view until April 5, 2020, and Family Circle is on view until May 10, 2020. There is an opening reception planned for both shows this Saturday, February 1st from 6 to 8pm.
Liz Albert, “Family Fictions” on view at the Danforth, installation photograph by Suzanne Révy
It seems that my father never took a picture he did not like, but i suspect that his family slide shows would have been far more fun had he understood the value of editing and sequencing the pictures. Liz Albert brings the practiced eye of an artist to the task of reinterpreting naive family snapshots. By pairing and sequencing the images she finds in flea markets and through ebay, viewers are invited to create or imagine different possibilities or memories. In “Pursuits,” an elegantly dressed woman in red on the deck of a ship is juxtaposed with a hard scrabble man smoking a pipe sitting on the shore of a lake with canoe and oars. Both clearly enjoy boating, but it seems unlikely that their paths ever crossed, except here. A few of the parings create a foreboding tension such “Day’s End” where we see a man walking down a street through a car window at dusk alongside a picture of a fashionable woman grilling food in her high heels and a french twist up-do that recalls the mounting apprehension of a Hitchcock film.
Liz Albert “Pursuits” from “Family Fictions” courtesy of the artist and the Danforth.
Liz Albert “Day’s End” from “Family Fictions” courtesy of the artist and the Danforth.
The inclusion of a Kodak projector, carousel and a sheet of slides mounted over light strips will remind visitors of a certain age and show younger visitors the forebears of phone cameras and social media as the means to share the humble family snapshot. Albert’s work and the vintage equipment underscore photography’s ability to enhance memories, reinterpret narratives, and expose how the traces and relics of individual lives become a part of the ethos of broader histories.
Lee Kilpatrick, “Porchfest Cookout” from the “Together” series, courtesy of the artist and the Danforth.
Lee Kilpatrick “Together” on view at the Danforth, installation photograph by Suzanne Révy
Kristen Joy Emack “Flower” from the “Cousins” series, courtesy of the artist and the Danforth.
Across the hall, Family Circle connects stories embedded in the work of seven artists including three photographers. Danforth Interim Director and Curator Jessica Roscio writes, “Family is complicated, and family history is a dense web of people, places and things.” Lee Kilpatrick invites viewers right into a web of community through the profound distortion of elongated framing in the panoramic sweeps of his series “Together.” He presents dazzling dramas revealed through overt gestures and verbal interactions of friends and family in a variety of social settings. In contrast, Kristen Emack’s subtle ode to her daughter and nieces in the black and white series Cousins reveals the profound emotional connections children form through play as they grow. It is rare to see young girls of color documented through the loving and positive gaze of a mother, and Emack notes that as the girls have grown, they understand the significance these pictures can play in rectifying this void. And finally, Claudia Ruiz Gustafson employs family photographs in collages that are layered with textures, fabrics and self-portraits that speak to loss and longing for her childhood in Peru in a masterful salon presentation of her “Historias Fragmentadas.”
Claudia Ruiz Gustason “Historias Fragmentadas” on view at the Danforth, installation photograph by Suzanne Révy
The expert installation gives the photography on view the space to form intricate dialogs with the large expressive paintings of Jasmine Chen, the buoyant sculptures by Lisa Barthelson, the wide narrative paintings by Jenny Carpenter and the playful ceramic heirlooms by Mary Marozzi-Henderson. The mess and material of domestic life and the dynamic kinships are brought into a meaningful exchanges in this satisfying group of shows.
For more information:
https://danforth.framingham.edu
Please note that the Danforth is planning to have Liz Albert, Lee Kilpatrick, Kristen Joy Emack and Claudia Ruiz Gustafson give artist talks on Sunday, March 29th, 2020 at 3pm.
(Featured Image) Liz Albert from the “Family Fictions” installation at the Danforth. Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy.
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