Eileen Cowin has spent 50 years making photographs that borrow the language of television—staged scenes, loaded gestures, and figures caught in moments of soap-opera tension. Her best-known series, “Family Docudrama” (1980–1983), features large-scale color photographs starring her husband, twin sister, and stepchildren in scenes of marital strain and family friction. The line between art and life is so blurred that when the photographs appeared in the 1983 Whitney Biennial, viewers weren’t always sure which was which. LACMA is now presenting the first major survey of Cowin’s career. —Elena Clavarino