Kinship

Recent events have pushed artists to visualize ideas of closeness in a new light. Kinship, published on the occasion of the National Portrait Gallery’s tenth “Portraiture Now” exhibition, features the work of eight leading contemporary artists who explore familial relationships through photography, painting, sculpture, and performance.

Contemporary portraiture offers a way to consider the mutable yet enduring qualities of familial relationships and the internal and external forces that affect our bonds with others. For example, interpretations of distance – whether emotional, physical, or geographical – have recently become more fraught. By recognizing the transformations that occur in the genre of portraiture and the threads that today’s portraits share, we can better understand the universality and specificity of kinship.

List of artists: Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Jess T. Dugan, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Jessica Todd Harper, Thomas Holton, Sedrick Huckaby, Anna Tsouhlarakis

Author Biography

Dorothy Moss, Curator of Painting and Sculpture, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, and coordinating Curator of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative.

Leslie Ureña, Curator of Photographs, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.