Having met with an equal mix of critical acclaim and revulsion at the Edinburgh Festival, Brett Bailey’s Exhibit B – based on the ‘human zoos’ and ethnographic displays of the late 19th century – opens today at the Barbican. I have not seen it yet, but as someone with coloured South African heritage – well aware of the European brutality during the ‘Scramble for Africa’ – I have little desire to.
To some, Exhibit B will be racist and needlessly provocative. To others, it will be thought-provoking and poignant. The show ostensibly uses stark, racist imagery to make an anti-racist statement.
Is Exhibit B offensive? The 19,000-odd people who have signed the e-petition to have it withdrawn certainly think so.
No-one can deny that the images of black suffering provocatively paraded in the show are painful to behold, especially for people of colour.
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