NUCLEAR FAMILY
These layered images are all meticulously constructed from the reassembled archive of Norman Schroth, a mid-20th century commercial portrait photographer. The formal portrait often served as a self-edifying confirmation of one's middle-class status as well as a testament to a wholesome and flawless public image. Prominently displayed formal portraits became a vital trophy in many homes as the happy nuclear family acted as a litmus test for the success of the American dream.
Sir Francis Galton. Physicians. 1887. Albumen Print
I am fascinated by the work of physiognomist and pseudo-scientist Sir Francis Galton. His photographic practice centered around layering images in an attempt to envision the “perfect central type” of specific groups such as doctors, thieves, scientists, and outlaws. What strikes me the most is that the ultimate goal in this was less to envision the ideal citizen and more to paint a picture of the unwanted – to purely through appearances pinpoint citizens suspected of engaging in “dissident” behavior. It was a tool not to reward those seen as preferable and ideal but rather those to punish and jettison those on the fringes of society. Another bizarre case in history where photography was ultimately used as a weapon to excuse unethical and bigoted behavior.
Over many years I furiously hunted down and reassembled Norman's oeuvre of nearly 12,000 images and have spent hundreds of hours sifting through and cataloging its contents. I began compiling and separating similar poses and likenesses, by age and gender, and stacking them to produce these images. Each print is comprised of twenty photographs of completely different individuals that have been carefully aligned and layered. The subjects' identities fade into each other, erasing unique features while highlighting the astonishing similarities. This process creates painterly photographs of fictitious "central types" showing idealized individuals. When a woman, baby, child, and man are produced and all brought together, the group of photographs show an ideal family unit in mid-century America. These black and white photographs become frenetic, ghostly reminders of a society's effort to mainstream identity into normative roles of the nuclear family.