Date: Fri 05-Mar-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Aldrich-Klein-Reader's-Digest

Full Text:

"Future-Present" Brings Reader's Digest Selections Into Ridgefield

(with cuts)

BY SHANNON HICKS

RIDGEFIELD -- In the early 1940s, Reader's Digest co-founder Lila Acheson

Wallace began the Reader's Digest Collection, a selection of artwork

originally recognized for its holdings of Impressionist and early modernist

art. In 1988 the corporate art department launched an aggressive art

acquisition program that doubled the collection's size to 8,000 pieces and

expanded the holdings to include photography, painting, prints, drawings and

other works on paper.

The program was always meant to enhance the working environment at Reader's

Digest, and also to continue Reader's Digest's support emerging artists around

the world.

Through the middle of this month, the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art will

continue to present "Future-Present: Photographs of Children from the Reader's

Digest Collection." On view until March 14, "Future-Present" represents the

first time any of the pieces from the Reader's Digest collection have been

assembled for public viewing.

"The Reader's Digest collection has material that dates back to the 19th

Century," Richard Klein, the Aldrich's assistant director and the organizer of

the exhibition, pointed out recently. "But when the museum entered discussions

[with Reader's Digest], it was with the understanding that we would show only

contemporary prints, from 1980 or newer."

The photography segment of the Reader's Digest Collection was started in 1989;

the focus on images of children came about in 1996. While the complete

photography collection numbers over 2,000 pieces of work by emerging and known

artists (including pieces that date to 1922, the year Reader's Digest was

founded), the children's portion of the collection now contains over 275

vintage, modern and contemporary works by 150 photographers. The Aldrich is

presenting 73 works, representing 49 contemporary artists.

The museum chose to work with the Reader's Digest corporation in presenting a

show because the institutions share a similar mission: to present important

contemporary visual art. Included in "Future-Present" (the exhibition's name

is derived from the sense of hope children bring to each current and future

generation) are photos by Tina Barney, Ellen Brooks, Robert Mapplethorpe,

Sebastio Salgado and Carrie Mae Weems, among others.

"It is interesting to note how many well-known photographers, especially those

not recognized for their work with children, are represented in this

exhibition," Mr Klein wrote in his introduction to the exhibition's

accompanying catalogue. "Young people have consistently been important subject

matter for photographers since the medium's inception in the 19th Century,"

his essay continued.

In fact, of the 17 billion photographs that were taken last year, on the

amateur and professional level, more than 50 percent of that number is

represented by images of children. "There has been a lot of interest within

the last decade of the depiction of children," Mr Klein said recently.

While children have always represented a large segment of the photographs that

have been taken, art history professor and author Anne Higonnet pointed out in

a recent program at the Aldrich that "there is an increasing number of

photographers who are devoting at least part of their career to the children."

Aside from the point the Aldrich is a museum that focuses on modern visual

art, Ms Higonnet said, "One of the reasons this show is here -- the newer

photographs -- is because these are the stronger of the works [in the

collection.]"

"It is the newer ones which are more powerful, more culturally motivating,"

said Ms Higonnet, who teaches at Wellesley College.

Many contemporary photos certainly do more to capture children in dramatic

settings, or even more natural settings and reactions, than their historic

counterparts. Mark Steinmetz's "Chicago 1989," a 14 by 20-inch gelatin silver

print included in the show, captures the moment five boys in a pickup baseball

game nearly collide in the outfield as all five move in to catch a flyball.

The ball has just touched the glove of one of the boys, and each facial

expression tells a different story -- "Am I going to collide with a

teammate?," "Did I catch it?," "Where's the ball?," and so on.

Conversely, Len Jenshel's "Alice in Wonderland Statue, Central Park, New York"

captures five little girls clamoring on the statue of the image's title. While

the setting is more natural and less tense than the purposely posed canvas

counterparts of early 18th Century painters like Mary Cassatt, the girls are

still obviously aware of the camera and photographer's presence. Each girl is

wearing a light blue pinafore, just like her fairy tale namesake. The

contemporary photo may be more light-hearted and less posed than the earliest

images of children, but it is still a picture that was in some part created,

rather than simply captured spur of the moment.

In her lecture on February 26 at the museum, Ms Higonnet used examples of work

by the popular photographer Anne Geddes to back up her point that commercial

photographers will use children just as easily as immaterial props in their

work, yet still create images that are pleasing to the eye and enjoyable to

look at.

"Future-Present: Contemporary Photographs of Children From The Reader's Digest

Collection" presents works that run the gamut from pieces that are simply

enjoyable to look at, such as the aforementioned "Chicago 1989," to images

that can have so much read into them their images nearly lose all hint of

innocence the idea of childhood carries with it.

In the exhibition catalogue, Janet Rutledge makes the argument that in

"Boston," a 1986 Ektacolor print by Paul D'Amato, a young black girl in a

purple dress and white tights is not just reaching from the railing of her

home's porch to grasp a red rose, but that the child represents everything

from the contrast of youth in an old neighborhood to an example of leaving the

dark (the porch and its railing are painted a dark green) and reaching into

the light (the background is of a white house that abuts her parents' home).

Whatever viewers choose to read into the works on view in the current Aldrich

exhibition, children are generally pictures of innocence. In deciding to share

part of its collection with the public, the Reader's Digest Corporation has

allowed museum visitors to not only see works of art that have been

unattainable for decades, but also to see children in a different light.

The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, 258 Main Street in Ridgefield, is open

Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 5 pm (Friday until 8 pm). For details, call

438-4519.