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‘Group Portrait’ at PRC; teapots and antiques at PEM
BY RANDI HOPKINS
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That dreaded phrase "Everybody smile!" is heard throughout the land at this season as families gather around tables for Thanksgiving or clump in attractive settings for the annual Holiday Card shot. Awkward interpersonal relations are inadvertently captured, as are otherwise blessedly fleeting fashion trends, oddball elements of décor and lighting, and the occasional unidentifiable distant relative or soon-to-be ex-boyfriend. Hail the group photo, hard to control, wonderful to behold. And even more possibilities open up when artists, as opposed to amateurs, train their cameras. "Group Portrait," which opens at the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University on November 18, presents work by five contemporary photographers in a genre that has roots reaching from 17th-century Dutch paintings of burghers to 21st-century photographs by Tina Barney and Elsa Dorfman. The artists in "Group Portrait" find inspiration in sources including art history, cinema, feminism, and mythology. Julie Blackmon photographs her family, especially her three children, capturing the casual details of modern life (including soccer balls and iPods) in compositions that evoke the MFA’s John Singer Sargent portrait of the Boit sisters — they’re that good. Jessica Todd Harper also focuses on the domestic sphere, photographing friends, family, and self at home, often with an eye to women — their roles and their relationships. Sage Sohier presents work from her series "Mother," looking at her mom, herself, and her sister as they age. Amy Montali’s background in film, theater, and dance influences her photographs of a small, recurring group of friends and acquaintances, and Ben Gest photographs several people in the same place but not at the same time, scanning and compositing multiple frames of film to fashion images that unite disparate moments and unrelated events, creating fictitious narratives that seem to unfold before your eyes. A familiar domestic object — the functional yet often stylish teapot — will be in the spotlight at the Peabody Essex Museum when "The Artful Teapot: 20th-Century Expressions from the Kamm Collection" opens on November 25, complete with a mind-boggling 250 examples of this curvaceous vessel made from materials ranging from porcelain to soda cans to woven $5 bills. Some celebrate the anthropomorphically suggestive form of the teapot; others go farther afield, re-creating, for example, a full moon above elegant, forged-steel tree branches. In addition, during Thanksgiving weekend, November 25-27, PEM will host the "33rd Annual Antiques Show" — silver, furniture, paintings, porcelain, jewelry, and more. Proceeds support the museum’s educational programs, so be generous! "Group Portrait" @ Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, 832 Comm Ave, Boston | Nov 18–Jan 22 | free opening reception today, Nov 17, 5:30–7:30 pm | 617.975.0600 or http://www.prcboston.org/ | "The Artful Teapot" and "33rd Annual Antiques Show" @ Peabody Essex Museum, East India Square, Salem | Nov 25–March 5 (teapots); Nov 25-27 (antiques) | 866.745.1876 or http://www.pem.org/
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