Family Times: Judy Gelles – Photographs and Video 1978-2005

On View March 17 – April 30, 2006

Family Times: Judy Gelles – Photographs and Video 1978-2005, a photographic retrospective of Ms. Gelles’ work, highlights her humorous, touching and provocative portraits of her own family as social commentary.

Beginning with her series, “Family Portraits,” the photographs document the daily life of the artist as a young mother alongside her two sons and husband. Gelles uses black & white images and words to describe her innermost thoughts. The show also includes a series of “banal” portraits taken over ten consecutive years of the families’ visits to Florida that traces the growth of the boys and the simultaneous aging of their parents and grandparents.

Caught in the nexus of feminism, motherhood, finding a career and developing as an artist, Judy Gelles gently but astutely explores these issues in the context of a “normal” middle class, suburban setting.  The most recent piece included is her video “The Age Tapes”, which was filmed at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida last year and tackles the topic of aging with grace and wit.  Always able to see the universal within the specific, Gelles is a great and subtle satirist for our time.

As a member of the American Association of Museums, The Hebrew Home at Riverdale is  committed to publicly exhibiting its art collection throughout its 32-acre campus including the Derfner Judaica Museum and a sculpture garden overlooking the Hudson River and Palisades. The Derfner Judaica Museum + The Art Collection provide educational and cultural programming for residents of the Hebrew Home, their families and the general public from throughout New York City, its surrounding suburbs and visitors from elsewhere. The Home is a nonprofit, non-sectarian geriatric organization serving more than 11,000 elderly persons in greater New York through its resources and community service programs. Museum hours: Sunday – Thursday, 10:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Art Collection and grounds open daily, 10:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Call 718 581-1596 for holiday hours and to schedule group tours, or for further information please visit our website at http://www.hebrewhome.org/art

This exhibition is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.