Finders keepers
Two new exhibits look at the art of found photos
That snapshot of Gramps when he was a boy -- the one that looks as if it was taken by mistake, because old Gramps wasn't even really posing -- did you ever think it was a work of art?
Old snapshots have taken on a new cachet in the art world recently. Called vernacular or found photographs, viewed through the eyes of curators and artists who don't know the people in them, they can be read the way art is: for composition and enigmatic content.
"I do not care at all about a photo for its historical qualities, or where it was, or who it is," says found photo collector John Foster of St. Louis, whose storehouse of vernacular photographs is the source of "Accidental Mysteries," a new show at the Peabody Essex Museum. "For me, it's all about the image."
In addition to "Accidental Mysteries," another new exhibit spotlights found photos. "Whichever Stone You Lift: Memorials From Grove Street's Jewish Cemetery," at the Brookline Arts Center, exhibits Knox Gardner's pictures of found photographs mounted on gravestones.
"This is an artform that has come from everyday people," Foster says on a tour through "Accidental Mysteries." "Some do it better than others. Others make fortunate mistakes."
Those mistakes include the comical "Twins and Boy in Window," a relatively formal portrait of twin girls in front of a house, shot just as a young boy scrambled through one of the windows; his rear and feet stick out. "Ghost Bed" and "Girl in Bubble" feature unexplainable glows ("maybe a lens flair," says Foster) that imbue the images with eerie and disturbing presences.
"Crashed Toy Airplane" was no mishap. Until you scrutinize the picture, you'll mistake it for a real crash. "My guess: It was probably taken by a child," says Foster, who dates the image to circa 1935 -- most of the shots in "Accidental Mysteries" date to before 1970.
Taken by a child, perhaps, but it presages the work of art photographer David Levinthal, who has been shooting toy-filled tableaus since the 1970s. Likewise, "Girls With Watermelon," a gorgeous shot of two girls, one chomping on the melon, the other turning coyly away and taking off her top, anticipates Sally Mann's innocently erotic portraits of her own children.
"These things take on a high art that bumps into masters of modernist photography," Foster says. "More contemporary photographers like (Garry) Winogrand and (Lee) Friedlander mined work like this for almost naïve qualities of composition. When I look at their work, I see they were influenced by the serendipitous accidents that happened with family photos."
Knox Gardner went to the Grove Street Cemetery two years ago and found photos transferred onto ceramic and mounted on memorials, a characteristic of Eastern European grave markers. Those at Grove Street date from 1915 to 1935, and most feature formal portraits rather than snapshots.
"I was instantly drawn to them," Gardner says over the phone from Seattle, where he now lives. "Many were vandalized. The epoxy had leaked. The patterns, the colors underneath were very interesting."
They include "Our Beloved Mother, Ida Hoffman, d. 1921," in which the face has been violently gouged out to reveal the ceramic beneath.
"One of my greatest concerns was that someone might see it as exploitative," says Gardner of his photos. "They're taken out of context. Especially with memorial photos -- what does that mean? I struggle with that."
Yet, "the ones I find most beautiful are the ones that have been desecrated," he adds.
Like Foster, Gardner collects mysterious old snapshots. "Everyone knows how to run a camera," he says. The familiarity is part of the appeal of found photos. "But the mystery -- who are these people? The backstory is gone. At Grove Street, the congregations are gone. You can only guess."
When you know the people in the pictures, they're keepsakes. When you don't, they're art. Gardner has shown his Grove Street photos to friends in Seattle.
"Here, people want to put them in their houses as art objects. They see the beauty of the photos," he says. "In Brookline, people looked at them and asked, 'Do you know the Sapersteins?' "
"Accidental Mysteries" Peabody Essex Museum, East India Square, Salem. 866-745-1876.
Through Jan. 27. pem.org
"Whichever Stone You Lift: Memorials From Grove Street's Jewish Cemetery" Brookline Arts Center, 86 Monmouth St., Brookline. 617-556-5715.
Through July 27. brooklineartscenter.com 