Sue

Williamson

and

Lebohang

Kganye:

Tell

Me

What

You

Remember

|

Barnes

Foundation,

Philadelphia

Tell Me What You Remember, on view through May 21, pairs Sue Williamson (born in 1941) and Lebohang Kganye (born in 1990), both South African. Their work engages with memory, notions of family, and the long-term effects of apartheid. While the exhibition consists mostly of video and photography, neither artist considers herself a photographer, but rather an artist who uses the medium.

Williamson, the elder of the two, emigrated to South Africa from England at the age of seven. Before becoming an artist, she trained as a journalist, and this background carries over into her work, in which the acute observation of apartheid-related disparities plays a key part. Williamson consistently shows an awareness of her privilege as a white artist during and after apartheid. In a conversation printed in the exhibition catalogue between Williamson and Kganye, Williamson says that artists from her generation believed they had “a moral responsibility to be part of the struggle for liberation.”