Michael Weinstein

Of the twelve photographers here addressing family and friendship, eleven take deeply personal approaches and one is entirely stagy. The odd shooter out is Sally Mann, whose famous black-and-white scenario photos of her young children in various stages of nudity appear excruciatingly contrived in the context of a forest of images invested with emotion, albeit often on the sentimental side, with healthy doses of failing old age. The subversive in the pack is Jen Davis, whose friend—or more likely enemy—is her poor-soul persona wallowing with varying degrees of displeasure in her obesity and always appearing clueless, yet ever betraying a wink and a nod. Staged as Davis' images are, they genially reflect a genuine ambivalence that ambitious Sally Mann could never imagine in her most provocative fantasies.

"Relative Closeness: Photographs of Family and Friends" shows at The Museum of Contemporary Photography, 600 South Michigan, (312)663-5554, through August 4. (2007-07-02)

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