Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Loss, Foundling Museum/Photography, Motherhood and Identity, Photographers' Gallery - exhibition review

Housed in two galleries, this exhibition focuses on the themes of loss, identity and motherhood, featuring the works of various artists and photographers. The overall effect not only exposes home truths, it also suggests intriguing fantasy in the maternal links
14 October 2013

This unusual exhibition, housed in two galleries sharing the title "Home Truths," reveals surprising, stirring and provocative angles on relationships between mothers and their children. Purposely divided, the themes of "Loss" and "Identity" abandon all clichés familiar to 'Motherhood' as seen on TV ads and family snaps.

The appropriate choice of the Foundling Museum (founded in 1739 for abandoned babies) sees four artists differently interpreting “Loss” through still photographs, film and animation. Adoption underlies Ann Fessler’s autobiographical documentary following an emotional car journey in search of her birth mother’s details. For Tierney Gearon, her mother’s loss to schizophrenia is interpreted through her private world depicted in detailed scenes of playful costume changes. But for Miyako Ishiuchi, her mother is preserved through beautiful still-life abstracts of her intimate objects, from lipstick to hair brush.

At the Photographers Gallery, eight contemporary photographers emphasize the effects of babies and children on their mothers’ new identities. Hanna Putz and Elinor Carucci disrupt the familiar baby images: Putz’s wonderfully sculptural poses see tiny limbs tangled around the naked woman’s neck while Carucci’s bottle feeding baby has the romance of the romance of their Freudian gaze disrupted by their dark shadow behind them. Most sorrowful is the blurry print of a still-born boy but optimism dominates in the father, Fred Huning’s series of mother and lively second son at play. In painful contrast, Elina Brotherus’s self-portraits depict her depression around failed IVF. But this exhibition also carries fun in the bizarre performance pieces by Janine Antoni and Katie Murray, and pornographic imagery in Leigh Ledare’s scenes with his exhibitionistic mother whose posing dissolves their moral boundaries.

The overall effect of this fascinating collection not only exposes home truths, it also suggests intriguing fantasy in the maternal links.

Until 5 Jan (020 7841 3514, foundlingmuseum.org.uk; 020 7087 9300, tpg.org.uk)

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