New Positions in Contemporary African Photography

last updated 8 January 2015

Most of the world sees Africa “filtered through images of calamity,” said Holland Cotter in The New York Times. So pervasive is this syndrome that Okwui Enwezor, the Nigerian-born art historian and curator, has a word for it: “Afro-pessimism.” His latest exhibit, Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography, is a “bracing antidote.” The stimulating show is clearly not interested in mere cosmetic spin. Enwezor has orchestrated a “slow, complex, panoptical turn in perspective” that accommodates myriad views. Unlike its predecessors, Snap Judgments includes as many cityscapes as it does portraits and is “thoroughly postcolonial.” Most of the work was made in the last five years, by artists who were born during or after the first years of independence in the 1960s. Among the most notable pieces is Otobong Nkanga’s series of photos made in both Nigeria and Germany. Only when examined closely can the locations be told apart.

The artists here may all be African, but they are expressing themselves through a Western medium, said William Meyers in The New York Sun. It is unavoidable, therefore, that many adopt a Western perspective when they shoot. Still, they have learned the art form well. Nontsikelelo “Lolo” Veleko of Cape Town, South Africa, works in a documentary format. Her Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder series shows fashionable young Africans showing off their clothing. Simplicity is the strength here. In Nonkululeko, a teenage male stands in front of a brick wall wearing red, yellow, and black plaid pants, a green paisley shirt, and a red cap. Cindy and Nkuli shows the two girls standing awkwardly in front of a brick factory wall, one in a bright orange dress and red stockings, the other in a yellow dress and black and white stockings. Guy Tillim’s documentary photos of Johannesburg are even more powerful. His photojournalistic prints expose the aftermath of apartheid.