Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son

Reviews

Shadow of the House: Photographer Abelardo Morrell

Unfamiliarizing the most familiar

By NINA MACLAUGHLIN | September 5, 2007

2.5 Stars

SHADOW OF THE HOUSE: Themes of home and homeland.

Abelardo Morrell makes photographs in which the outside is brought inside — using the camera obscura technique, he exposes bedroom walls with inverted projections of the world outside the window. He unfamiliarizes the most familiar: coins fall like liquid; a book, swollen and warped with water, resembles wood or stone. Allie Humenuk’s quiet documentary follows Morrell, who’s a professor at MassArt, over seven years in an examination of his process. Themes of home figure heavily: Morrell explains how the birth of his son changed his artistic direction, shifting him toward the interior. And during the course of the film, he returns for the first time to Cuba, his birthplace, despite objections from his parents who fled Castro more than 40 years ago. “There is actually a lot more of the world coming into your space than you think,” he says, regardless of where you are in the world — your house or your homeland.

Topics: Reviews , Allie Humenuk

| More

See more deals

view all

[ 02/15 ] "In Habitat," works by Brian Chippendale and Jungil Hong @ Jamestown Arts Center

[ 02/15 ] Suzanne Vega @ Narrows Center for the Arts

[ 02/15 ] "Dana Levin: A Classical Realist In the 21st Century," an exhibit of paintings @ Bert Gallery

ARTICLES BY NINA MACLAUGHLIN

ON CARPENTRY AND COLLEGE | October 20, 2011
Age 30, I quit the Phoenix and ended up with a job as an apprentice to a carpenter. Sawing, chiseling, hammering, nail-gunning, tiling, sanding, slotting, framing, hauling, measuring, and sweeping are less obvious outcomes of an undergraduate career in the liberal arts. College, in strange and unexpected ways, prepared me for this sort of work. And in others, did not prepare me at all.

PHDISASTERS | April 27, 2011
I knew a man pursuing a PhD in literature. His dissertation had to do with humor as a form of dissent in 20th-century literature. And how enthused he was at first! How passionate and excited.

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE'S THE PALE KING | April 13, 2011
All I can do is tell you how I read the book.

THE HOUSE THAT HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG BUILT | February 25, 2011
Andre Dubus III collected me at the Newburyport train station last month when the snow piles were already high. We stopped first for a coffee for the road; he asked all the questions: siblings, hometown, are you married?

DON'T BE AN IDIOT | January 27, 2011
We're all idiots when we're 18. We're all idiots for the first half of our 20s, and longer, for some. By saying so, we're not trying to insult anyone.