All in the Family

Co-curated by Stuart Horodner and Leah Kolb

Presented at the UK Art Museum (July 16 – November 23, 2024)

and 2nd Story, 522 West Short Street, Lexington (July 16 – October 12, 2024)
 

“One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family.”

– Jonathan Saffron Foer

This two-venue exhibition brings together works by emerging and established artists who use their relatives (parents, children, siblings, partners) as subjects for an examination of love and intimacy, acceptance and forgiveness, rituals and routines, and illness and loss. Selections offer a broader definition than blood relations, including aspects of chosen families and the significance of pets. All in the Family offers an opportunity to consider who and what we value, and the related joys and challenges that are part of the equation. 
 

Many of the works featured are part of the Museum’s permanent collection, with additional art borrowed from studios, galleries, and collections. They include Edgar Tolson’s carved wooden sculpture of Adam and Eve; Elinor Carucci, Gaela Erwin, Tommy Kha, Rolf Koppel, Guy Mendes, and Marilyn Minter’s portraits of their mothers; images of their own or other’s families by Rachael Banks, Richard Billingham, Tyanna Buie, Rockwell Kent, Tony Tasset, Russell Lee, and Baldwin Lee (no relation); Robert Morgan’s cabinet filled with commemorative plates, cups, and books that chronicle men he has cared for through addiction and legal woes; and Aaron Skolnick’s tender portraits of himself and his husband Louis Zoellar Bickett during the final month of Bickett’s life, among others. James Baker Hall, Barbara Pollack, and Chris Verene each offer mediations on the “family album” in photographs, books, and video; paintings by Bill Adams capture the adoration his partner Alix Pearlstein and their dog Benny have for each other; and a drawing by thirteen-year-old Ford Ingram details the artworks that his father Scott should consider making. 
 

The exhibition title is taken from the American television sitcom that aired on CBS for nine seasons, between 1971 – 1979. The show broke ground in its depiction of issues previously considered unsuitable for US network comedies, including racism, homosexuality, women’s liberation, religion, abortion, menopause, impotence, and the Vietnam War. 
 

Co-curators Stuart Horodner and Leah Kolb live together in Lexington with their fifteen-year-old dog, Paco.

IMAGES:

Top: Elinor Carucci, My mother wants me to forgive my daughter, 2016, printed 2021, archival pigment print. Collection of the UK Art Museum, purchase: The Robert C. May Photography Fund.

 

Bottom: Rockwell Kent, Baker of the Bread of Abundance from the series Bituminous Coal Institute, circa 1945, oil on canvas.