The 2026 Danforth Museum Annual Juried Exhibition includes strong black-and-white photography, a medium which delivers us from any one particular timeframe into a unique present-day view. Susan Alport’s enigmatic black-and-white photographs often incorporate references to literature, and “IT’S ABOUT TIME” is no exception. This photograph of an assemblage of other, black-and-white photos includes a portrait of early-20th-century poet Hilda Doolittle, known professionally by her initials, H.D. The poet is shown sporting a 1920s bob, and is layered with a 1950s photo-booth snapshot of a fashionable young woman — the artist? Alport creates a time capsule which visually cites throughlines of influence; this work, referencing relationships just beyond the viewer’s grasp, is haunting.
The storytelling impact of black-and-white is used to good effect in Jòvan Jenkins’ “Optimism.” A silhouette of a person, in raking perspective, is framed against the sky in this well-composed photograph. Branches, or antlers, sprout from the figure’s head, evoking a numinous entity, or perhaps radiating thoughts, mysterious and powerful. Rebecca Skinner’s “Timeworn,” an image of clothing hanging against a large, institutional-seeming, basement window, embodies the tonal beauty possible in black-and-white. In a color-saturated world, the abstraction of black-and-white serves as a refreshing antidote to the 21st-century’s manipulated, over-saturated digital images.
That said, a ravishing color photograph by Astrid Reischwitz, “Cherry Soup with Dumplings,” evokes the best of Dutch 17th-century still-life painting while locating itself in a more unsettled present. An arrangement of a sewing box, foliage and fruit, the work reflects the pleasures of the material world, as celebrated by hyper-realistic Dutch and Flemish still life painters like Rachel Ruysch and Clara Peeters. Here, the composition holds many clues: a partly unwound spool of thread, a partly peeled lemon, a scattering of cherry pits, which all lend an air of coming apart-ness, and uncompleted tasks, or perhaps the quotidian remnants of a dinner in progress.