Photo by: Lea Yuan Yang

The exhibit “The Family Stage” is now open in the Victoria H. Myhren Gallery and highlights snapshots found in family albums.

Participating artists Janet Delaney, Todd Hido and Cecil McDonald Jr. explore the preservation of such photos from the early 20th century to today.

The exhibit immediately draws the viewer into the dynamics of family and household. It then begs the question of technology’s role as the works evolve from antique albums full of small, faded black and white portraits to images in digital frames.

The exhibit brings together amateur as well as professional works, often indicated by their presentation. It causes the viewer to question what art is and what is shown as art.

Many of the photographs are not much different from what your parents might have tucked away in an old end table in the living room, but in this exhibit they are shown next to perfect color prints, matted and mounted to the wall. This disconnect highlights the evolution of and different aspects of family photo albums.

“I wanted to photograph everything that made me pause,” wrote Delaney about her works titled “Housebound.” “I wanted to record the sensation of living.”

Delaney’s photographs abstract an element of what she calls “simple scenarios of home and family” and turns them into icons of growing up and growing old. Delaney teaches photography at the University of California.

Hido’s “Ohio” is a collection of new and old photographs taken over a span of 40 years. The older photographs were taken in the 1970s by Hido’s father on a cheap instamatic camera. In the earlier photographs, Hido attempts to recreate a truer family album resulting in disturbing images that reveal devastating childhood occurrences.

“Sources of terror in childhood become sources of attraction in adulthood,” said Hido on the Loveline radio show. He lives in Oakland, Calif.

Cecil McDonald Jr.’s “Domestic Observations and Occurrences,” turns mundane domestic life into complex colorful visions. Images of his family appear draped in beautiful hues of red and blue.

The ‘domestic occurrences’ photographed are very personal but translate to universal domestic scenarios. For example, “Frances Before Dinner” shows a mother preparing food in the kitchen while her young daughter dances to music. McDonald is from Chicago.

The gallery is open daily from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. and admission is free. For upcoming events and exhibits visit www.du.edu/art/myhrengallery.htm.