This exhibition explores the 'snapshot' aesthetic, examining how amateur photography and spontaneous, unposed moments have inspired various photographic fields, particularly within American art photography. It highlights the raw intimacy and poetic depiction of everyday life found in snapshots.
The exhibition 'Only The Good Ones: The Snapshot Aesthetic Revisited' delves into the significance of the snapshot—an amateur photograph intended for personal use—as a source of inspiration across photographic disciplines, with a particular focus on American art photography. The snapshot, characterized by its spontaneous capture of everyday moments, minimal direction, and disregard for conventional artistic or journalistic norms, has been a prolific form of photographic production throughout the 20th century and continues to evolve with the rise of social media. The exhibition traces the history of this aesthetic, presenting it as a narrative of provocative diary-like intimacy, the poetry of the mundane, and a vibrant undercurrent of street photography that periodically revitalizes stagnant artistic and commercial practices through the uninhibited power of an impulsive gesture. It encompasses themes of absurdity, sex, parties, adolescent mishaps, naivety, late-night swimming, the intense present, and life mediated through images, positioning the snapshot as the 'rock'n'roll of photography.'
The exhibition features over 200 works by a diverse range of artists including Nobuyoshi Araki, Tim Barber, Richard Billingham, Mike Brodie, Larry Clark, Barbara Crane, Bill Dane, Corinne Day, William Eggleston, JH Engström, Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Luigi Ghirri, Nan Goldin, Jacob Holdt, Jerry Hsu, William Christenberry, William Klein, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Ari Marcopoulos, Ryan McGinley, Joel Meyerowitz, Slava Mogutin, Daido Moriyama, Mark Morrisroe, Ed Panar, Tod Papageorge, Walter Pfeiffer, Jack Pierson, Stephen Shore, Dash Snow, Joel Sternfeld, Gus Van Sant, Jürgen Teller, Andy Warhol, Henry Wessel, and Garry Winogrand. The exhibition was curated by Michal Nanoru, who also authored the illustrated catalog published by Galerie Rudolfinum.