Christmas at Hinky Dinky, Lincoln, Nebraska, James Alinder

Artwork Overview

James Alinder, Christmas at Hinky Dinky, Lincoln, Nebraska
James Alinder, Christmas at Hinky Dinky, Lincoln, Nebraska
James Alinder
Christmas at Hinky Dinky, Lincoln, Nebraska
1971
James Alinder, artist
born 1941
Christmas at Hinky Dinky, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1971
Where object was made: United States
Material/technique: gelatin silver print
Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 19.2 x 42.4 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 7 9/16 x 16 11/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 20 x 25 in
Credit line: Museum purchase
Accession number: 1972.0271
Not on display
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Images

Label texts

Exhibition Label:
"Conversation VIII: Serious Play," Jun-2010, Kate Meyer and Susan Earle
When we play we have fun. The works on view in this installation have been selected to respond to the video by Pipilotti Rist, I Want to See How You See. Many of these objects draw upon memories of childhood or references to childhood and the body to produce biographic narratives. In many instances, these memories are subversions of the ideal innocence of youth portrayed by fiction. Childhood can be a time of anxiety or repression that informs our experiences as adults. Another theme suggested by the video relates to multiple and distorted perspectives of vision. For his photographs, James Alinder employs a fisheye lens to deliver surrealistic perspectives. For his triptych, Robert Rauschenberg incorporates a distortion-lens camera to produce the central panel, which includes an oval-shaped text that lists the key events and influences in the artist’s life. In Rist’s video, these explorations of perspective appear to link the idea of vision (seeing) with perception (understanding).

Exhibition Label:
"Signs of Faith: Photographs from the Collection," Oct-2001, Elissa L. Anderson
Alinder emphasizes the commercialization of religion in this photograph of a Nebraskan supermarket’s frozen-foods section. The suburban family, mesmerized by the seemingly endless rows of microwave dinners and cartons of ice cream, ignores the handmade Christmas decorations arranged overhead.

Exhibition Label:
"The Family in Photography," Dec-1997, Stefanie Vigil
Only in recent times has the everyday routine of the family become the subject for family photographs. Rather than show the festivities of the family Christmas celebration, Jim Alinder shows his family shopping for their holiday meal.

Exhibitions

Conversation VIII: Serious Play
Susan Earle, curator
Kate Meyer, curator
2010
Teaching Gallery: African Islamic Art & Contemporary African Art
2012–2013
Teaching Gallery: Food Utopias Workshop
2013
Signs of Religious Faith: Photographs from the Collection
Elissa Anderson, curator
2001–2002
The Family in Photography
Stefanie Vigil, curator
1997–1998
Made or Taken? Photographs of Women, 1840-1980
1989–1990
Brosseau Center for Learning: Home for the Holidays 2018
2018–2019
Language of Light: A survey of the Photography Collection of the University of Kansas Museum of Art
James L. Enyeart, curator
1974
Foundling
Pinyan Zhu, curator
2019
Foundling
Pinyan Zhu, curator
2019

Resources

Audio

Didactic – Art Minute
Didactic – Art Minute
Episode 152 Jul-2008, Ellen Cordero Raimond I’m David Cateforis with another Art Minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. James Alinder’s black-and-white photograph from 1971, Christmas at the Hinky Dinky, Lincoln, Nebraska, shows the artist’s smiling wife standing next to a shopping cart bearing their white daughter and adopted black son, beneath holiday decorations and dwarfed by a panoply of frozen packaged goods. By photographing his subject-the supermarket-straight on and from a close distance using a panoramic camera, Alinder creates a “cigar” effect whereby the Hinky Dinky’s frozen foods’ section and its surfeit of products seem ready to burst free from the picture plane and into the viewer’s space. Although made decades ago, this photo touches upon issues that continue to vex American society -from contested definitions of racial and gender norms, to our current “culture of consumption,” and the controversies surrounding the questionable health benefits of artificially manufactured foods. In addition to Christmas at the Hinky Dinky, Lincoln, Nebraska, two more photographs by James Alinder may be viewed by request in the Spencer’s Print Room any Friday from 10-12 and 1-4, or by appointment. With thanks to Ellen Cordero Raimond for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.