DeCordova Collects Photographs: Recent Acquisitions

Tom Young

Tom Young's photographs from the Lost Child Series are disturbing narratives of absence. At the time of the birth of his first child, Young began to notice scenes within a few miles of his home in Charlemont, MA, which contained evidence of the prior presence of children: a culvert with a tiny glove, an empty swing, or a decrepit barbecue pit with athletic socks. He photographed these sites at dusk with long exposure times to establish a look of foreboding and mystery. Black openings, like the center of the crumbling pit, often appear in the pictures as dark passages to the unknown, symbolic of death. These claustrophobic, deeply affective scenes suggest a parent's worst nightmare. A child is lost, has run away, or was abducted. Young's photographs possess a cinematic quality of expectation—they capture the visual instant before panic sets in. Photographs from the Lost Child Series were included in the DeCordova exhibition Good-bye to Apple Pie: Contemporary Artists View the Family in Crisis, 1992.

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