June 7, 2002

Family
Our families, exotic or mainstream, inspire new Aldrich exhibit
By Laurel Tuohy
Special to The News-Times

RIDGEFIELD – If someone told you to get in the "backy-back," would you know where to go?

What if they asked you to put on some "woobies?"

These are the subject matter of Geof Huth’s "Words of the Family" installation at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. This piece, part of a larger exhibit called "Family," includes a dictionary and "wordex" (a Rolodex with words) of special made-up words that are used within families. The "backy-back" is "the way back of an SUV, behind the back seat" to one family, while "woobies" are "comfy, relaxation clothes" to another.

This ambitious show explores the constantly shifting nature of family life in the 21st century. Some recurring ideas include: marriage (traditional, non-traditional, and shunning of), children (to have or not to have, and how to raise), fertility (the use or waste of), sexuality, and aging. And don’t expect to see some artist’s genealogical tree tracing back to "the old country" here; these works challenge the "existence of a ‘typical’ or ‘normal’ family.’ "

The 37 artists included employ mediums from painting and sculpture, to video and installation art.

Sean Mellyn’s "It’s A Beautiful Day" is the most appealing work in the show, in both idea and execution. It is also the least controversial. A colorful eight-foot-high painting depicts a beautiful blond toddler whose forehead is literally bursting open with her fanciful, nonsensical ideas. The cartoonish sculptures (it’s 3-D) "float" out of her head and onto the wall above, while other "ideas" have procured a ladder and are climbing down to the floor below where they march toward the viewer. A watermelon-like object "crawls" with a pair of chubby toddler arms and wheels instead of legs, a milk carton has toddler arms and legs but has fallen over and "his" milk is spilling out.

One of my favorite pieces in the exhibit is Travis Geery’s "Patriarchy." From across the room it resembles the skeleton of a dinosaur’s tail found at more pedestrian museums, but upon closer inspection, it’s a man’s head, life-size, at one end, growing smaller and less distinct, down to the hundredth link, which is just a round, flax-colored pebble. To create this effect, Geery made a mold from a casting of his fathers head, then slip cast a clay head form in the mold and fired it in his kiln, where the usual pottery shrinkage occurred. Geery repeated this process 100 times, then lined up the heads in descending scale.

The piece represents the changing relationship between parent and child, between the artist and his dad. When we are young, our parents are the most important people in the world to us (as well as being much larger than us). As we mature the relationship changes (as does the size difference), and our parents occupy a smaller and smaller place in our consciousness as we begin lives of our own.

Of the seven video installations in the exhibition, Laura Dunn’s "Baby" is the most thought-provoking. The black and white five minute 16mm film shows footage of a sweet toddler in a diaper playing in a yard. The soundtrack is a conversation between Dunn and her boyfriend about having a baby. Dunn states that every 10 seconds the world’s population grows by 27 while a clock ticks continually and numbers flash (by the end of the video the world has 548 more people in it). The clock symbolizes both the population increase and Dunn’s own dreaded "biological clock." She tries to reconcile her strong instinct to procreate with her knowledge that the world is overpopulated; her boyfriend describes his strong urge for sex, but not children. He says sex is no longer directly connected to having a baby, that it’s something we can and should control. Though a serious topic, it’s a playful piece with sounds of the couple laughing and kissing during their conversation.

Other videos fall flat, however. Doug Hall’s "These Are The Rules" has the artist, looking like an aging Max Headroom, sporting a greasy gray ducktail and oversize reflective sunglasses yelling parental dictates such as "Keep Your Nose Clean" and "Always Try Your Best."

Patricia Cronin’s "Memorial to a Marriage," is a beautiful sculpture of a couple with their arms around each other in bed. Carved out of stark white plaster, it’s reminiscent of a shroud. With this piece the artist wants to "make official in death her ‘marriage’, which cannot be made legal in this life." Did I mention her partner is a woman?

Artist Sophie Calle’s "Autobiographies (The Rival)" is one of the most talked about pieces in the show. Though nothing much to look at, a six-foot-high typed letter, its discovery was life-changing to Calle. The letter is from her husband to his mistress, a love letter that she had always requested but never received. The size of the work is "probably no exaggeration of the impact it had on her." On the letter, Calle has crossed out the woman’s initial "H.," and inserted her own, as well as making grammatical and stylistic corrections on it. Her husband wrote "You’re a phone number by a photo I have listed in my head. You are always for me a destination and a place to reach for every night." Well, she didn’t divorce Shakespeare.

Robert Melee’s "Mommy and Me" is a collection of snapshots that feels like passing a car wreck on the highway – you don’t want to see it but you can’t stop looking. Imagine if Baby Jane became a sex worker and had a son whom she loved very much and enjoyed taking pictures with, and you can imagine this work. The series features a sagging mother wearing full stage makeup and wigs in various states of undress with a can of Miller High Life in one hand and her grown son in the other. These photos truly challenge the idea of a what a mother "should be."

Chrissy Conant’s "Chrissy Caviar" is one of the most hyped installations in the show. Conant has cutely packaged jars of her eggs and displayed them as if for sale in a refrigerated case. The piece comments on how reproduction is no longer a private matter but commercialized and on display.

The best works are by far the most personal ones. Family is such a large and undefinable topic that the works aiming for universal messages just don’t resonate. However, "Family" succeeds at expanding our consciousness to accommodate all the things that the term can mean.

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The venue is at 258 Main St. in Ridgefield. The show will run through September 4. Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday 12 p.m.-5 p.m. Admission is $5 ($2 for students and seniors), children under 12 are free, and admission is free for all each Tuesday. Call (203) 438-4519.