By Suzanne Révy
We are in a moment of political peril. The noose is tightening around voter rights, women’s reproductive care is being dictated by religious zealotry and inflationary pressures are motivating a rightward lurch. Such forces leave us feeling vulnerable and it is within this heightened state of distress that three artists, Toni Pepe in An Ordinary Devotion, Lisa Rosowsky in Othering and Jane Szabo in Family Matters have been grappling with the current political landscape through the lens of the personal. These three shows use or appropriate photography to consider the role of family and memory in the hierarchies of private and public power and are on view at Danforth Art at Framingham State University through January 29th, 2023.

Feature Image: “Mothercraft” by Toni Pepe, rephotographed appropriated press image from the series Mothercraft, courtesy of the artist and Danforth Art.

“Off Playing Bridge” by Toni Pepe, rephotographed press picture from the series Mothercraft, courtesy of the artist and Danforth Art.
An Ordinary Devotion by Toni Pepe consists of several distinct explorations regarding motherhood. In Mothercraft, she takes discarded press images found on Ebay and at flea markets, holds them up to the light and re-photographs from the back side so that the handwritten notes appear as an overlay on the shadow image. Pepe’s images date from 1903 to as recently as 1997, amassing a visual compendium of 20th century motherly tropes. Certain images were used repeatedly, sometimes decades apart, to illustrate stories intended to shape perceptions of the “good mother.” Occasionally, these were accompanied by captions critical of any mother who deigned to spend some time on her own. One particularly biting remark indicates that a crying child has been neglected by his mother “who is off playing Bridge.”

“The Blue of Distance” by Toni Pepe, breast milk on cyanotype. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)

Snapshots under the loupe, found and installed by Toni Pepe. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)
The palpable sense of a mother’s loss of identity while caring for children runs through Pepe’s work. A series of vintage pictures etched onto glass and then projected onto a dark wall feature the backs of adult heads, recalling projected slide shows. The pictures remind me of so many family albums where mothers often purposely hid their faces or the photographer’s focus, usually a dad, was solely on a child. Pepe equally probes and embraces the ephemeral nature of growing and changing bodies with plaster casts of her children’s navels, spilling breast milk onto cyanotype, or in small vernacular pictures with magnifying loupes to emphasize the soft touch between a newborn and its parents. Pepe manages to layer the tension between the pleasures of parenting, its enormous physical toll, and the cultural and psychological demands of “good mothering” in this provocative installation.

“The Missing” by Lisa Rosowsky (detail), quilt with images courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum “Remember Me” project. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)

“Lévitan” by Lisa Rosowsky, 2012, cotton, wool, wood, LED Lights, featuring inventories of stolen family heirlooms on the side. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)
Like Pepe, Lisa Rosowsky appropriates existing imagery in her installation, Othering which is the most overtly political of the three exhibitions. She presents parallels between the events that led to the Holocaust and the eerily similar current political climate. Her quilt, “The Missing” features hundreds of images of children who were separated from their families during World War II, and in a bid to reunite them, were photographed with their names on placards. In “Lévitan,” she employs family photographs that function as windows and walls to a dollhouse which categorizes the domestic items stolen from Jewish families across Europe and recalls the work of the late Christian Boltanski. In another piece, current news photos are mounted onto a frayed American flag in a powerful indictment of how violent white supremacists are fracturing the American ethos.

“I Wish it Weren’t So” by Jane Szabo, 2017, from the series Family Matters, courtesy of the artist and Danforth Art.

“Secrets” by Jane Szabo, 2017 from the series Family Matters, courtesy of the artist and Danforth Art.
Unlike Rosowsky or Pepe, Jane Szabo makes still-life photographs that immerse viewers in childhood memory. While not as politically overt as the two other artists, when seen together, Szabo’s work reveals the importance of family in shaping our selves, our politics and our culture. Presented salon-style, the images depict familial objects such as toys, trophies and sewing items, all photographed on a black background as if emerging from the abyss of forgotten memory. Szabo’s role as daughter reversed to caregiver as her parents aged and then passed on, and she made this work as she went through their home to prepare it for sale. In “Secrets” and “Burdens” she uses small rocks as a metaphor, possibly for the unwavering presence of family, and the sometimes hard choices we make when faced with familial conflict. Szabo’s titles are suggestive without being didactic. She offers viewers opening salvos for personal interpretation, finishing poignantly with “Unplugged” a small ceramic Christmas tree that hints at the end of a year and the demise of a family.
Szabo’s nostalgic familial belongings could recall the type of domestic wares that were stolen from Jewish families by the Nazis, as addressed in Rosowsky’s work. And Rosowsky’s piece underscoring the separation of children from their families during the Holocaust become all the more wrenching when viewed alongside Pepe’s emotionally complex considerations of maternal bonds. We are navigating a hazardous moment in history, when once again our various identities, religions or family structures are being manipulated to divide us. In bringing together these exhibits, Danforth Art curator Jessica Roscio gathers the keen appraisals of Toni Pepe, Lisa Rosowsky and Jane Szabo into an opportunity for dynamic perspectives of public and domestic systems of power, and an appeal to heed the lessons of history with a sense of empathy.
For more information, go to: https://danforth.framingham.edu