'SOCIAL DOCUMENTS' A COMPELLING TWIST IN PHOTO ALBUM CONCEPT.

Byline: Bradford Mar Special to the Daily News

Photo albums are the evidence that a family uses to tell its stories. Since MOCA would like its latest exhibit to tell stories, "Social Documents" gives its newly acquired photographic prints the collective density and chronological cataloging of an archetypal photo album.

However, the photos the museum is using already have been used to tell other stories - stories that are more compelling, unfortunately, than what might be produced by their collective juxtaposition. Each of the nine series in "Social Documents" screams for solo exhibition, leaving a photo album that is coming apart at the seams. But the pictures are still nice.

The discordance of the exhibit does weaken its collective impact, but it does not prevent the popularity of certain themes. Such themes as childhood and sexuality figure so prominently that they undermine the design of the exhibit and impose a framework that skips from one wall of one room to another wall of the next room. In this fashion, the viewer must play what amounts to thematic leapfrog amid a series of photos that are organized with innocuous objectivity.

The social contexts of childhood, and its development into adolescence, are best exposed by the lens of Helen Levitt. Her photographs of New York children at play treat the urban streets in which they congregate as if they were merely backdrops for the theatrical display of discovery, emotion and friendship that are common to children everywhere. Undaunted by a gray city, the children express themselves honestly, without fear. As she focuses her mechanical eye on the adolescents of those same streets, bodies that once expressed life now contract and harden as if protecting life. Levity is replaced by fear as the city develops its own intimidating mass, its presence no longer subdued by the inexperience of childhood.

Sexuality, its social implications and incarnations, is the devotion of at least a quarter of the exhibit. Larry Clark's series "Teen-age Lust" examines the sex culture of the '70s. Similar to Levitt's children, these teen-agers express themselves without inhibition. However, while Levitt's children express acceptance and fellowship, Clark's teen-agers affirm their individual identities, whether brutal or beautific.

Nan Goldin's series "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" examines sexuality by documenting the periods of frustration and anticipation that surround the act itself. Her subjects are seen always waiting, searching, never satisfied, as the politics of sex are traced into even the minutia of their lives.

In all, the nine series do not lend themselves easily to compilations. They are photo albums within themselves, and merely taping them together does not equal the presentation of something new.

The facts

The show: "Social Documents: MOCA's New Photography Collection."

Where: Museum of Contemporary Art, 250 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

When: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays through May 26.

Tickets: Call [phone].

Our rating: two stars

CAPTION(S):

PHOTO

(1) Garry Winogrand's untitled work, circa 1969, from the series "The Animals" is part of "Social Documents MOCA's New Photography Collection." (2) Helen Levitt's 1940 photos of New York children at play ponder social contexts of childhood. (3) Diane Arbus' works include a young man in curlers at home in New York City, circa 1966.