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Two-fers: At the Addison Gallery, pairs populate the pictures

Diane Arbus, "Identical Twins, Cathleen (l.) and Colleen, members of a twin club in New Jersey," 1966. Addison Gallery of American Art Advertisement There's also the most consequential photographic name of all: Anonymous. A display case contains a selection of nearly 100 snapshots and postcards They're a show unto themselves: black-and-white and color; most posed, but not all. There are photo-booth shots, a heart-shaped picture, another with the face of the woman in it torn out. (Absence does not make the two shot grow fonder.) A few are even pretty high concept, such as Richard and Pat Nixon being seen on a television screen. Advertisement Hans Namuth, "Jackson and Lee Pollock," 1950. Addison Gallery of American Art Populating 'Dynamic Duos' are siblings, parents, parent and child, perfect strangers — imperfect strangers, too — and couples. Some of those, like the Nixons, are husband and wife. The body language in Hans Namuth's joint portrait of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner doesn't exactly need a marriage counselor to interpret it. (Talk about people in a two shot ignoring each other!) The then-married Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman don't seem all that much more simpatico in Jonathan Becker's shot of them at the 2000 Vanity Fair Oscar party. A wall text quotes Louisa May Alcott: 'It takes two flints to make a fire.' Or make a fight, as when Neil Leifer captured one of the most electric images of the 20th century. Since the dominant figure in it is one of the century's most electric personalities, Muhammad Ali (or, as he then was, Cassius Clay), it's easy to overlook that it's a two shot. The reason Ali stands exultant in triumph is that Sonny Liston lies on the canvas before him, the embodiment of anti-triumph. Neil Leifer, "Ali-Liston, First Round Knockout, Lewiston, Maine," 1965. Addison Gallery of American Art Ali dominates that image. With others, both people do. In Stephen Shames's 'Eldridge Cleaver Speaks at Berkeley Campus Rally,' the Black Panther leader's face, and that of his wife, Kathleen, standing behind him, fill so much of the frame the upper portion of his head and the lower portion of hers are cut off. Sometimes there are no faces at all, as in John Goodman's 'Tremont St. #4/Combat Zone,' from 1978. Or there's Nicholas Nixon's untitled photograph from 1986, showing his own bare chest and a baby fist. Advertisement Sometimes a photograph requires a second look to realize it has two people in it. The viewer is meant to barely notice the woman and man in Julius Shulman's 'Dynamic Duos' offers an unusual, frequently surprising, and often fun way to look at photographs. One form the fun takes is that the figures within the frame aren't always people. Grouped in a side gallery are photographs of person and animal — who knew that Iggy Pop owned a dog? — or animal and animal. Back in the main gallery, one creaturely pair doesn't consist of animals, human or otherwise. Alec Soth's George Bellows, "The Circus," 1912. Addison Gallery of American Art 'On and Off Stage,' which the Addison's Rachel Vogler curated, is a sort of duo show, too. Half is devoted to representations of performers. That's the 'performance' part of the subtitle. Half is devoted to the sort of performing we all do in daily life, whether consciously or not, or artists aping that performing. That's the 'persona' part of the subtitle. Barbara Morgan, "Merce Cunningham: Totem Ancestor," 1942. Addison Gallery of American Art 'On' comprises photographs, prints, drawings, and paintings — of dancers, acrobats, tumblers, and circus performers, as in George Bellows's 1912 canvas 'The Circus.' A wall of photographs of dancers by Barbara Morgan, Philippe Halsman, and George Platt Lynes is (with apologies to Sonny Liston) a real knockout. Advertisement Cindy Sherman, "The Detective," 1976-2000. Addison Gallery of American Art 'Off' is mostly photographs, with some vintage postcards and a couple of videos. There is both performing as practiced by civilians (as it were), such as the two girls with dolls in Sally Mann's 'New Mothers'; and artists being performative as part of their aesthetic enterprise. The most striking example would be 15 Cindy Sherman photographs from her 'Murder Mystery People' series, with Sherman as all of the people. She began the project in 1976, just out of college. It's like an out-of-town tryout for her epic Georgia O'Keeffe, "Wave, Night," 1928. Addison Gallery of American Art 'Playing to Our Strengths' is the first in a planned series highlighting the Addison's holdings. The museum's Gordon Wilkins curated. As a title, 'Our Strengths' may sound a bit braggy. Actually, it's simple statement of fact. One of the three galleries the show takes up is all Eakinses and Homers. The next focuses on Modernist painters from the interwar years: Davis, Dove, Hartley, Hopper, O'Keeffe, Sheeler, you know, names like that. The final gallery has work from Color Field painters and abstractionists: Ellsworth Kelly, Morris Louis, Barnett Newman, Kenneth Noland, Larry Poons. Stuart Davis, "Red Cart," 1932. Addison Gallery of American Art Like 'Strengths,' 'Dynamic Duos' and 'On and Off Stage' are drawn from the Addison's permanent collection. The excellence of all three shows, as one might infer, testifies to the quality of that collection. Even if it charged admission, which it doesn't, the Addison would be as good a museumgoing bargain as there is in New England. And that's not even counting the traveling June Leaf retrospective, which is also up through July 31. As Spencer Tracy says in 'Pat and Mike' (a movie with lots of two shots), Advertisement DYNAMIC DUOS ON AND OFF STAGE: Performance and Persona PLAYING TO OUR STRENGTHS: Highlights from the Permanent Collection At Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, 3 Chapel Ave., Andover, through July 31. 978-749-4015, Mark Feeney can be reached at