Presumed Innocence: Photographic Perspectives of Children
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Covington, Kentuccky, 1982
© Nicholas Nixon
If you’re in the Boston area you must make it out to the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA to see the group show of photography they have up at the moment, Presumed Innocence: Photographic Perspectives of Children.
Presumed Innocence: Photographic Perspectives of Children features images of children in vintage and contemporary photographs that range in date from the early twentieth century to the present day. These photographic works of art were selected from the private collection of Anthony and Beth Terrana, whose vision relies on direct emotional response to the dramatic and timeless quality of each image, rather than on any attempt at encyclopedic or systematic collecting.
The 113 photographs and single video in Presumed Innocence were made by photographers who characteristically focus on children, and also by those who occasionally photograph children. The international collection is rich in traditional documentary and socially concerned photography, and also includes images created with newer digital technologies that enable the photographer to create partially or wholly fictitious images. The selected images fall loosely into the following thematic and often overlapping categories: the child alone, family relationships, children and animals, the child observed, the child at play, the child at risk, rites of passage, and constructed narratives.
The children in these photographs are sweet and tough, innocent and wise, cherished and victimized, joyous and sorrowful, carefree and desperate. Although all of these pictures have been taken in a particular place at a specific time, they are timeless because they speak to conditions that children experienced universally. The photographs also raise many challenging questions: Can a photograph of a child ever be entirely innocent? What are the aesthetic and personal implications of a parent as photographer? How have images of children changed over time? What’s more important, the artist’s intention or the viewer’s perception? How much do our personal, religious, and political beliefs affect our reading of the photograph?
The featured photographers are: Ansel Adams, Shelby Lee Adams, Catherine Angel, Diane Arbus, Ilse Bing, Julie Blackmon, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Mike Brodie, Leslee Broersma, Debbie Fleming Caffery, Chan Chao, Michal Chelbin, Clark + Pougnaud (Christophe Clark and Virginie Pougnaud), Mark Cohen, Paul D’Amato, Bruce Davidson, Rineke Dijkstra, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Martin Elkort, Elliot Erwitt, Lalla Essaydi, Larry Fink, Martine Franck, Andrea Frank, Robert Frank, Tierney Gearon, Margi Geerlinks, Gour (Kids with Cameras), Emmet Gowin, Robin Graubard, Anne Hall, David Hilliard, Lewis Hine, Julie Holcombe, Pieter Hugo, Simen Johan, Kenneth Josephson, Anastasia Khoroshilova, William Klein, Ingar Krauss, Heinrich K ü hn, Dorothea Lange, Gillian Laub, Jocelyn Lee, Arthur Leipzig, Leon Levinstein, Helen Levitt, Elmar Ludwig, Loretta Lux, Robert Lyons, Sally Mann, Constantine Manos, Mary Ellen Mark, McDermott and McGough, Laura McPhee, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Andrea Modica, Tina Modotti, Abelardo Morell, Rachelle Mozman, Bob Natkin, Jehad Nga, Nicholas Nixon, Luis Gonz á lez Palma, Polixeni Papapetrou, Martin Parr, Gösta Peterson, Melissa Ann Pinney, Nicholas Prior, Sebastião Salgado, Frederick Sommer, Erika Stone, Angela Strassheim, Helen M. Stummer, Jock Sturges, Antanas Sutkus, Joseph Szabo, Guy Tillim, Katherine Turczan, Doris Ulmann, Brian Ulrich, Roman Vishniac, Alex Webb, Weegee, and Liu Zheng.
Quite a collection, no?
Also, Laura McPhee will be lecturing in the Third Floor Lobby, Saturday, March 1 at 3pm. And there are a few films being screened on selected Saturdays at 3pm as well:
March 8 - Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project by Jack Youngelson and Peter Sutherland (2006) 70 minutes
April 5 - Mary Ellen Mark: Twins by Martin Bell (2002) 15 minutes
April 5 - The Amazing Plastic Lady by Martin Bell (1993) 29 minutes
April 12 - Sally Mann: What Remains by Steven Cantor (2005) 80 minutes
Mark your calendars, Boston-area friends and go see see this exhibition while it’s still up, sometime before April 27, 2008.
