WELL-DOCUMENTED GROWTH: CASILIO TRIIIBE CONTINUES TO EXPLORE OUR DIFFERENCES

If you love political art, you will love TRIIIBE. Identical triplets, Alicia, Kelly and Sara Casilio and their late photographer Cary Wolinsky’s 3’ by 4’ and larger photographs with a social conscience titled “Repeat Offenders: TRIIIBE Returns,” is on view at the South Shore Art Center through July 22.

Wolinsky, a National Geographic photographer for 35 years, with a spectacularly original eye and vast portfolio, discovered the triplets at a retirement party for their professor at Massachusetts College of Art & Design (where they created their own major of Public Art) — at which they dressed like him, including beard and frumpy clothing. They were street performers doing such physical tableaus as identical capitalist businesswomen marching to work, or three dying victims of Bush’s Iraq war: an Iraqi woman, a 9/11 victim and a soldier.

Wolinsky suggested they take their art inside, to create what they call “slow performance,” allowing an audience to pay attention to details captured by the camera. He admired their courage and humor. He was the muse who directed their ventures (which included Cary’s graphic designer wife, Babs, and filmmaker son, Yari). “These girls can do it all,” they said he was wont to say — because they would originate the concepts, inspired by an event, a costume, an object — build the sets, and make the costumes, as well as improvise the parts in the story of the tableau.

(To read more, pick up a copy of our latest issue! Find a pick-up location near you or Subscribe Here.)