BROOKLYN, NY.- A new installation of contemporary art presents recent acquisitions displayed along with notable works that have entered the collection over the past five decades. The recent acquisitions range from younger artists such as Nina Chanel Abney, Shinique Smith, and Isca Greenfield-Sanders to more established figures such as Mary Heilman, Mitch Epstein, and Lorraine O’Grady. The presentation focuses on familial relationships, broadening the definition of family to include larger groups or communities united by shared values, identities, lifestyles, or emotional needs. Extended Family: Contemporary Connections, now on view through summer of 2010, includes some forty works.

The intergenerational selection of works on view demonstrates that familial relationships endure as a rich source of inspiration. Each of the artists expresses fluid definitions of the family and domesticity, drawing on experiences that are private and public as well as individual and communal.

The presentation is co-organized by Eugenie Tsai, John and Barbara Vogelstein Curator of Contemporary Art, and Patrick Amsellem, Associate Curator, Photography, at the Brooklyn Museum.

Included in Extended Family are Nick Cave’s Soundsuit (2008). a mixed-media piece that transforms the human body into a still life ornamented with scavenged materials, referencing a range of rituals from African dances to Christian liturgy. In the portfolio Samar Hussein (2003-9), artist Vera Lutter commemorates the civilian deaths in the war in Iraq since the American invasion through images of a hibiscus flower’s life cycle. Forbidden Fruit (2009), a painting by Jersey City-based artist Nina Chanel Abney that is part of a series of works drawing inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, alludes to the chapter featuring a hookah-puffing caterpillar. Reception (2009), a complex installation by Vadis Turner, and The Couple (2003), an aluminum sculpture by Louise Bourgeois, make their debuts in Extended Families. Several recent, self referential photographs by the late Dash Snow are also included.

Among the other artists represented are Ghada Amer, Polly Apfelbaum, Tara Donovan, Mona Hatoum, Glenn Ligon, Joe Overstreet, Hellen van Meene, Michelangelo Pisoletto, and Andres Serrano. A few of the works were on view in the previous installation, among them Fred Wilson’s Grey Area (Brown Version) (1993), and Mickalene Thomas’s A Little Taste Outside of Love (2007), but the vast percentage of works are new to this presentation.