Family Ties: A Contemporary Perspective

If family is often considered the backbone of civilization, it has undergone serious rethinking over the past few decades. Most disciplines, from sociology to psychotherapy to economics, have had their turn at analyzing, theorizing and representing the family in all its many forms. In “Family Ties,” the relationships that bind families are explored via nearly 60 contemporary artists. Alice Neel paints mother daughter portraits; Nicholas Nixon photographs his wife and her three sisters every year for 25 years; Larry Fink documents the blue-collar Sabatines; Sanford Biggers and Jennifer Zackin, who grew up, respectively, in middle-class black Christian and white Jewish families, run parallel slide shows of their childhood Kodak moments; and Roger Shimomura renders pop images from the Japanese internment camps where his family spent part of his childhood. Published in conjunction with Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts and an exhibition opening there in June 2003. (Jun 21 – Sep 21.03)