Kith AND KIN

Vanities / Art

A Smithsonian exhibition explores complex bonds

"KINSHIP is A sense of shared recognition and trust," says Leslie Urena, curator of photographs at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. That word is also the title of the gallery's winter show, comprising work by eight artists, including LaToya Ruby Frazier, Anna Tsouhlarakis, and Jess T. Dugan. "Though vastly different in terms of the topics they address, each of the artists visualizes how people relate to one another," says Urena, who curated the exhibit with her colleague in painting and sculpture, Dorothy Moss.

Frazier's Flint Is Family in Three Acts photographically chronicles Michigan residents affected by the water crisis—"a human record and testimony that indicts systems that violate our human rights," as the artist says. Tsouhlarakis's sculpture and performance piece, Portrait of an Indigenous Woman [Removed], honors the communities of missing and murdered Indigenous women. And the connection goes beyond the exhibit: In November, the gallery's annual Portrait of a Nation gala celebrated luminaries including Anthony Fauci and the Williams sisters—a fine art communion in thanks for their service.

ALLISON SCHALLER