Artist:
Sean Snyder (born 1972 in Virginia Beach, USA; lives and works in Berlin, Germany).

Description:
A series of color photographs depicting the city of Brasilía as a sort of contemporary ruin.

“Determining the limits of what is feasible, the city Brasilia [sic] was built in the middle of the jungle. Sean Snyder’s color photographs, ‘Brasilia’ (2000), look like selective planning: what has happened in terms of architecture and sociology since the capital of Brazil was founded? What has remained of the planner’s original intentions? Snyder juxtaposes the state of the early buildings, ambitious in terms of urban planning, with contemporary council houses. Next to expressways, paths have emerged, lending meadows a structure and pointing towards the fact that sufficient pavements for the inhabitants had simply been forgotten. As with so many images of failed utopias, Snyder’s work evokes melancholic emotions.”
—Justin Hoffmann, review of “No Swimming,” Kunstverein München, Munich, trans. Imke Werner, Frieze, January 1, 2001.