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Pictures From Home / Statement + History

Los Angeles, Early Evening
Los Angeles, Early Evening / 1986
Reading in Bed
Reading in Bed / 1988
Reading at the Kitchen Table
Reading at the Kitchen Table / 1988
Conversation Through Kitchen Window
Conversation Through Kitchen Window / 1986
Fixing the Rain Bird
Fixing the Rain Bird / 1985
Conversation in Driveway
Conversation in Driveway / 1986
Dad in Bed
Dad in Bed / 1984
Sunset
Sunset / 1989
Asleep in the Afternoon
Asleep in the Afternoon / 1987
Mom in Green Night Gown
Mom in Green Night Gown / 1992
My Father's Dresser
My Father's Dresser / 1985
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving / 1985
Dad at White Board
Dad at White Board / 1984
Golf Trophy
Golf Trophy / 1984
Business Page
Business Page /
Cadillac
Cadillac / 1991
Sprinklers, Palm Springs
Sprinklers, Palm Springs / Sprinklers Palm Springs Larry Sultan Pictures From Home ART298 LS297
Dad With Raft
Dad With Raft / 1987
Dad on Sofa
Dad on Sofa / 1984
My Mother on a Chaise Lounge
My Mother on a Chaise Lounge / 1987
Dad Behind Plant
Dad Behind Plant /
Practicing Golf Swing
Practicing Golf Swing / 1986
Mom in Garage
Mom in Garage / 1988
My Father's Desk
My Father's Desk / 1987
Across the Divide
Across the Divide /
Discussion, Kitchen Table
Discussion, Kitchen Table / 1985
Argument in the Hallway
Argument in the Hallway / 1986
Talking Through Car Window
Talking Through Car Window / 1987
Mom Touching Wall
Mom Touching Wall /
Mom and Dad at the Pool
Mom and Dad at the Pool / 1987
My Mother Posing
My Mother Posing / 1984
Mom Caught in Curtain
Mom Caught in Curtain / 1991
Moving the Bed
Moving the Bed /
Empty Pool
Empty Pool / 1991
Moving Out
Moving Out / 1988
Fixing the Vacuum
Fixing the Vacuum / 1991
Close Up
Close Up /
Mom in Pool
Mom in Pool / 1990
Dad on Boat
Dad on Boat / 1984
My Mother Posing
My Mother Posing / My Mother Posing 1984 Larry Sultan Pictures From Home ART216 LS215

The house is quiet.  They have gone to bed, leaving me alone, and the electric timer has just switched off the living-room lights.  It feels like the house has finally turned on its side to fall asleep.  Years ago I would have gone through my mother’s purse for one of her cigarettes and smoked in the dark.  It was a magical time that the house was mine.

Tonight, however, I am restless.  I sit at the dining-room table; rummage through the refrigerator.  What am I looking for?

All day long I’ve been scavenging, poking around in rooms and closets, peering at their things, studying them.  I arrange my rolls of exposed film into long rows and count and recount them as if they were lost.  There are twenty-eight.

What drives me to continue this work is difficult to name.  It has more to do with love than with sociology, with being a subject in the drama rather than a witness.  And in the odd and jumbled process of working everything shifts; the boundaries blur, my distance slips, the arrogance and illusion of immunity falters.  I wake up in the middle of the night, stunned and anguished.  These are my parents.  From that simple fact, everything follows.  I realize that beyond the rolls of film and the few good pictures, the demands of my project and my confusion about its meaning, is the wish to take photography literally.  To stop time.  I want my parents to live forever.

 

Larry Sultan: An excerpt from Chapter One of Pictures From Home, 1992

 



Selected Exhibitions

1996
Queens Museum
New York

1995
Scottsdale Center for the Arts
Scottsdale, Arizona

1994
Corcoran Museum of Art
Washington DC

San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art
San Diego, California
Chicago Cultural Arts Center
Chicago Illinois

1992
San Jose Museum of Art
San Jose, California

Stephen Wirtz Gallery
San Francisco, California

Featured Reviews

1995
Larry Sultan: Pictures From Home
George Howell
Art Papers

Family Values
D.H. Mader
Perspektief, Holland

Mom-and-Pop Art
Bettie Rinehart
New Times

The Autobiographie Realism in Recent Photography and Media Art
Bas Vroege & Deanna Herst
Perspektief, Holland

Larry Sultan’s Pictures From Home
Kiana Dicker
Blast

Thought-Provoking Exhibit Examines Meaning of Home
Tom Patterson
Winter-Salem Journal

1994
A Jewish Family: From Brooklyn to New York
Richard Woodward
ARTnews

Family Pictures Tell a Multitude of Stories
Suzy Shultz
Chicago Sun Times

Larry Sultan’s Photos Raise an Old Question: Whose Life is it Anyway?
Larry Thall
Chicago Tribune

Portrait of the Home Folks: Poignant Family Essay
Robert L. Puncus
The San Diego Union-Tribune

1993
Family Viewing
Vince Aletti
Village Voice

Pictures from Home
Michael Collins
Creative Camera

Larry Sultan, Pictures from Home
Charlotte Moser
Artweek

Family Values
Michael Read
Review: Friends of Photography

Art in Review – Larry Sultan
Charles Hagen
The New York Times

Seen Through the Eyes of a Child
Veronique Veinne

1992
Family Album

Portfolio:  Larry Sultan
Los Angeles Times Magazine

Of Human Bonding
Karen Heller
Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine

All in the Family: Photographer Larry Sultan Stays Close to Home in Search For Truth
Marcia Tanner
San Francisco Chronicle Datebook

1991
Dark Domestic Visions

Alice McDermott
New York Times

A House is not a Home
Peter Plagens
Newsweek

Something New Under the Met Sun
John Russler
New York Times

1990
Interview on Fresh Air

Terry Gross and Larry Sultan
PBS

Interview With Larry Sultan
Catherine Liu
Bomb Magazine

Books

1992
Pictures From Home
Larry Sultan
Harry N. Abrams
New York, New York

2010
Katherine Avenue
Larry Sultan
Steidl
Hannover, Germany

1998
Familial Gaze
Marianne Hirsch
Harvard University Press, Massachusetts

1995
Home is Where
University of North Carolina, Greensboro
North Carolina

Parent
Ron Geiber
Dayton Art Institute/Wright State University

Flesh and Blood
Abigail Heyman
The Picture Project, New York

1994
Who’s Looking at the Family
Carol Brown
Barbican Art Gallery, London

Public Collections

Art Institute of Chicago
Berkeley Art Museum / Pacific Film Archives
Birmingham Art Museum
Brown University
Canadian Center for Art and Architecture
Corcoran Gallery of Art
Di Rosa Foundation
Harvard Business School
Jewish Museum
Museum of Modern Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Milwaukee Art Museum
Museum of Fine Arts Houston
Princeton University
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Jose Museum of Art
Smithsonian
University Art Gallery / New Mexico State University
Yale University Art Gallery