The show, which runs through May 21, has an unusual background. After 9/11, Eastman House decided to put together an exhibition, drawn from its permanent collection, that both traced the history of American photography and spoke to a larger sense of American community and purpose. The show opened just before the first anniversary of the attacks.
The pictures were chosen by museum staff -- not just curators but also administrators, publicists, and so on. Some of the captions include commentary from the person who chose the image, and the comments are always heartfelt and often touching. At the end of the exhibition, museumgoers are urged to participate by sending in a snapshot or other photo of personal significance for inclusion in the show, and many already have.
The National Heritage Museum is a particularly suitable venue for ''Picturing What Matters," since the show emphasizes America as well as American photography. Unfortunately, the two emphases undercut rather than enhance each other. Rolled-up sleeves and moral uplift are splendid things, but they're at best irrelevant, and at worst inimical, to art. That's especially true when the art is of such quality, as is so often the case here.
Loose and baggy as the concept of ''American photography" is (Mr. Stieglitz, allow me to introduce you to Mr. Warhol), ''America" is that much looser and baggier. Trying to address this, ''Picturing What Matters" groups its images under such headings as ''Family," ''Legacy," and ''The Road," which just makes things worse. The poetry and promise of America wholly elude all such banal, canned categories, a fact underscored by the show's photo captions, in which one encounters such wondrous names as ''Decoy, Kentucky," ''Malheur County, Oregon," and ''Abraham Lincoln."
