Art explores nature and nurture

Go ahead, stare. In the new exhibit at Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, breasts are front and center, though that's far from the whole story.

ATHICA's first full-run show of a single artist's work, "Nurture" comprises the photographs and videos of New Hampshire-based artist Amy Jenkins, whose "Cradle" series, from which the show's pieces were selected, deals with issues of family, parenting and childhood. While Jenkins refers to her subjects as "kind of the universal stand-in for childhood and family and nurturing" they also are her family, and herself - often naked.

But the work is elegant and classically inspired: Stills from the 19-minute video "The Audrey Samsara" suggest strongly Jenkins' study of Italian art and its frequent use of mother-and-child imagery, as a child is shown nursing, falling asleep in her mother's arms and waking to nurse again.

Set on a lush black background, "The Audrey Samsara" has the mother clad completely in black, with the exception of her hands and left breast. The child cradled in her mother's arms - Jenkins' daughter, Audrey - is nude but for a pair of bright red shoes. It's a peaceful scene, but stirred controversy at what was supposed to be its debut.

Undertaken as a commission for Salvatore Ferragamo, the designer of the red shoes Audrey wears in the video, "The Audrey Samsara" was removed from the show at the 5th Avenue store at the eleventh hour, when a top company executive ordered that it be turned off.

Presumably, the executive found the child's nudity - or the naked breast - or breastfeeding, distasteful, muses Mary Jessica Hammes, an Athens-based writer (for the Banner-Herald, among other outlets), mother and the guest essayist for the exhibit.

But why all the to-do about breastfeeding? While Jenkins says she doesn't create art with a political agenda, she admits that the way art

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