Nontsikelelo "Lolo" Veleko -- "Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder"
If you plan to view this new exhibition of contemporary photography only once, you are in for an overwhelming experience. "Snap Judgements" is a collection of over 200 photographically-based works representing contemporary art practice over the whole continent of Africa, put together by curator Okwui Enwezor. The show is undeniabley powerful, and carries with it intricate layers upon layers of the history of an entire continent, and presents it to a Western viewer to comprehend, one typically unaware of the complexity of this history. An exhibition like this one is rare, and difficult to find comparisons for. One of the only exhibitions of it's kind was also organized by Enwezor himself for the New York Guggenhiem in 1996, called In/Sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present". In a way, Snap Judgements is the sucessor to this show. However, "In/Sight" showed works made in more Modernist traditions, while "Snap Judgments" shows cutting edge contemporary works of photography, installation, and video documentaton of performance.
Shows at the Brooks are always inevitably a little crowded, but the hanging of Snap Judgements is handled better than shows we've seen here in the past. This time, they've managed to put together 200+ works challenging photography as a medium of representation into a space that could stand to be larger, but have still managed to give everything room to breathe. You might say that a show like "Snap Judgments" is one that is long overdue, because it is. Yet it is exciting that this show is in Memphis, a city where the message of the collection resonates louder than it would in other cities.
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