Rough shot

Grim portraits of `Domesticated' life

by Leon Nigrosh

DOMESTICATED At the Worcester Art Museum, 55 Salisbury Street, through September 2.

There are two ways to view "Domesticated," the international photography show currently on exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum, which was assembled by WAM's former curator of contemporary art, Jessica Morgan. One approach is to walk into the center of the tall, hollow, white gallery, give a cursory look at the photos, then shrug your shoulders and walk out. This, I admit, was my inclination. Here we are, late 1990s, and this is the best we have achieved in the world of photography? Pictures of stupefied alcoholics, amalgams of Kodak moments, and images of empty rooms.

But WAM director Jim Welu cajoles visitors with well-rehearsed commentary. We should look, he says, at these works in another light, comparing them to 17th-century Dutch painters', which were among the first to represent people in their surroundings.

Tempered with this sociological spin, I considered the work of British photographer Richard Billingham not as repulsive as when first viewed. His frank and honest pictures of his alcoholic parents in their lower-class flat can indeed be related to the genre paintings by Bruegel and Sorgh that are often filled with drunkards with bad teeth and dirty feet. Today, viewers find these early peasant interiors to be charming and even somewhat amusing. Thus, we're entranced by Billingham's photos filled with all-too-real people -- Mum, staring blankly into mid-space, and Dad laughing at some unheard joke or being dead asleep with a bit of bread nestled next to his head.

But, ultimately, the attempt to view these pictures like we would the masterful Dutch works fails. Perhaps if the images were rendered in oils, they would have the needed psychological distance that would allow us to see and appreciate them through the filter of fine art, instead of being starkly confronted with an unvarnished documentary.

New Orleans photographer Gerald Cyrus offers us a series of much more pleasant views of his middle-class African-American friends and family. Both of his Kindred groupings contain unmatched and often fragmentary black-and-white images of split-second daily activities. A child on a swing, a mother pouring her toddler's bath in a plastic pan in the middle of a kitchen, and a peaceful open-casket viewing are among one set of pictures arranged without explanation. It is our job to decide the relationships between them.

Certain vignettes also stand out from Cyrus's second grouping. A large man is joyfully weightlifting his tiny baby in one hand, a pair of kid's feet balancing on a fence, and elders enjoying a bountiful dinner. Through this mixed bag of imagery, Cyrus wants to show us that African-Americans, contrary to the images that bombard us in the media, are just plain folks like everyone else.

Continuing the attempted association with 17th-century art, Canadian Laura Letinsky claims Dutch vanitas, still-life paintings of fruit intended to depict the fleeting nature of life, as the source for her color photographs. Her subject matter is carefully arranged on tables, creating palpable tension between knife blades and dishes, or pieces of rotting fruit meticulously arranged to accent their colors. One after-breakfast setting capitalizes on fish bones, egg shells, and bread crumbs to produce a rather unappetizing image of waste. Letinsky does manage to deliver one engaging image. Her untitled picture of ripe tomatoes on a sideboard in a white tile kitchen, all softly illuminated by natural light from an off-camera window, bears a direct influence from Netherlander still-lifes.

Boston photographer Shellburne Thurber and German-born Uta Barth aim their cameras at rooms devoid of both humanity and furniture. While Thurber dwells on color saturation and extra-sharp focus, Barth gives her lens an extra twist to throw everything out of focus. Through their individual takes, both artists raise more questions about their subjects than they answer. The overwhelming emptiness of the images makes us wonder who the former occupants were, and why they chose to decorate as they did -- or did not.

Even with all of the concentrated inquiry into the whys and wherefores regarding this assemblage of 17 photographic images, and the intense scrutiny of each picture's details and iconography, whether any of them can achieve the greatness and attendant admiration of 17th-century Dutch art will likely be determined three centuries from now.

The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call 799-4406.