Home, what a loaded concept! The place where our traditions, hopes and dreams are born, the place where our memories originate. The Memory Palace: Domesticity, Objects and the Interior” is a lively, expansive two-part show at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, Massachusetts, featuring work from five invited artists (4 photographers!) engagingly integrated with salient, multiple media pieces from the museum’s permanent collection. Examining the power and symbolism of domestic objects and the tenuous line between public and private, formal and intimate, exterior and interior spaces, viewers are treated to a range of fresh viewpoints that bounce, interconnect and radiate from the walls. I can’t hope to do justice to the way in which curator Jessica Roscio has brought so many fascinating themes to life, but I’ll highlight a few examples through the work of the four invited photographers.
“Refined Styling” from the series Around the Curve by Marie Craig (courtesy of the artist and Fountain Street Fine Art, Framingham).
In her series Around the Curve, Marie Craig photographs upholstered chairs – the big, comfy ones that promise a soft, nurturing cuddle and often function as a focal point in a living room or bedroom. When Craig finds them, they are old and worn and have been discarded by the curbside. The idea of something so cherished being cast out arouses our pity. Craig’s close-up images are almost abstract and magnify the tactile intimacy of once lush fabrics. Her titles like “Flirtatious Curve”, gleaned from furniture catalogs, further allude to the memories imbedded in these tattered symbols of domestic comfort.
“Flirtatious Curve” from the series Around the Curve by Marie Craig (courtesy of the artist and Fountain Street Fine Art, Framingham).
“In Their Purse Pockets, 2013” from the series Ghost Stepping by Molly Lamb (courtesy of the artist and Rick Wester Fine Art, NY).
Molly Lamb uses household objects, interiors and landscape to create a personal narrative on memory and loss in her series Ghost Stepping. By layering and reflecting interior and exterior spaces with objects that deceased relatives left behind in her family home, Lamb weaves together a mysterious past. The nuanced way in which she employs light and shadow create a sense of hushed anticipation. With an elegant sense of composition and gentle organic palette, Lamb imbues her imagery with reverence and grace.
“Unearthed, 2013” from the series Ghost Stepping by Molly Lamb (courtesy of the artist and Rick Wester Fine Art, NY).
“Split Busk, 2014” Daguerreotype (Becquerel Method) from the series Foundations by Lindsey Beal (courtesy of the artist and Panopticon Gallery, Boston).
In Private Lives, Public Spaces, Lindsey Beal presents work from several of her projects, most of which utilize archival photographic techniques (Daguerreotypes, Platinum Prints and Ambrotypes) which harken back to Victorian times. In fact, Beal’s finely crafted pieces look very much like something you might encounter in a formal parlor, except that they depict decidedly private subjects: revealing female figures, elaborate undergarments, antique mechanical sex toys and sexual contraceptives. Beal’s public display of intimate objects is a provocative paradox, blurring the line between public and private domestic life. Imagine a lavishly floral William Morris wall covering in a formal Victorian parlor being replaced by wallpaper decoratively patterned with…contraceptive diaphragms. Scandalous!
“Diaphragm, 2010” (detail) wallpaper from the series Reproductions by Lindsey Beal (courtesy of the artist and Panopticon Gallery, Boston).
“The White Cat, England, 2013) from the series In the Bedroom by Astrid Reischwitz (courtesy of the artist and 555 Gallery, Boston).
Astrid Reischwitz explores the private space of contemporary bedrooms and, in one intriguing contrast, the 18th Century bedroom of Paul Revere, used in its time as a place to entertain visitors. Centered on the bed and its immediate surroundings, her color photographs from the series In the Bedroom focus attention on the significance of decorations and objects in this intimate space. Viewers naturally wonder about the personality of the bedrooms’ absent inhabitants but an even broader curiosity emerges in the striking cultural differences between the bedrooms of England, Germany, Spain and the United States. Reschwitz’s fascinating sociological study is skillfully enhanced by her attention to the aesthetics of symmetry, color and pattern.
“Summer Blankets, Germany, 2013” from the series In the Bedroom by Astrid Reischwitz (courtesy of the artist and 555 Gallery, Boston).
The Memory Palace is such a dynamic, well-constructed group of exhibits that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Here we are in the dead of a New England winter – is there any better time to seek an enchanting indoor sanctuary? Certainly, there is no better place.
The exhibits featuring the photography of Lindsey Beal, Marie Craig and Molly Lamb run through February 28, 2016.
The exhibits featuring the paintings of Leslie Graff (featured at top and bottom in this post) and photographs of Astrid Reischwitz run through March 6, 2016.
For information about all the exhibits, as well as a schedule of special events and artist talks, go to: http://www.danforthart.org/TheMemoryPalace.html
Feature Image: “What She Put Into It” (detail) oil on canvas from The Domestic Series by Leslie Graff (courtesy of the artist and Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA).
“How She Looked At Life” oil on canvas from The Domestic Series by Leslie Graff (courtesy of the artist and Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA).
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