This is the first Fotofest at which I have been able to take in all of the exhibitions with the attention and seriousness that they deserve. Previously, I have been a portfolio reviewer at the Meeting Place and by the time the day was over and we were trooped over for an opening of an exhibition, I couldn’t approach the show with a critical eye if my life depended on it. Working the Meeting Place on a more ad hoc basis this year has let me really look at the festival’s exhibition program, and suffice to say that the experience has been a revelation.

Natasha Egan from the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago has mounted a wonderfully cohesive show at the Winter Street Studios: The Road to Nowhere? With a palpable sense of curatorial restraint, Natasha offers a show that challenges and rewards. She has chosen work that is pointed without being didactic, metaphoric without being obtuse, and accessible without being easy. If there were only one reason to see the show it would surely be the haunting and melancholy 3-channel video piece by Greg Stimac that features three white Ford Mustangs aggressively confronting the viewer with horns blaring until one by one, as batteries drain, the horns weaken and lapse into silence.

Medianation: Performing for the Screen has a lot to overcome: it is split between 3 venues, it is W-A-A-AY out there conceptually (by traditional Fotofest standards), and it is filled with artists whose last inclination is to be known as a photographer. In spite of these factors—or in some cases because of them—the show is smart, visually savvy, and a refreshing departure for this festival. Gilbert Vacario, curator at the Des Moines Art Center has pulled together a group of works that are elegant, gritty, thoughtful, whimsical, political and personal, and, somehow they coalesce into a show that is mostly rewarding, and always provocative. This is a show that needs to be experienced as if a single-day pilgrimage going from venue to venue. Somehow, driving, time, and distance become part of the fabric of the exhibition and contribute to the overall experience in a substantive way. Trust me…take the trek.

Whatever was Splendid: New American Photographs is housed at Fotofest’s Headquarters and curated by Aaron Schuman, founder of SeeSaw Magazine. While more uneven than the other two shows, it showcases well known work by Hank Willis Thomas and Todd Hido; Greg Stimac is again represented in this show with video and still work; but, the stand-out of this group effort is certainly the video piece Killcam (2008) by Richard Mosse which supports his still work. Mosse’s video features scenes of wounded vets from the current Iraqi/Afghan war playing Iraqi war-themed video games interspersed with actual targeted kill documentations from the same war. The effect is arresting, troubling, and incredibly effective.

Bravo, Wendy and Fred, for taking the risk of reinvigorating the festival with new voices, diverse sensibilities, and expanding parameters! Even when the results are not completely resolved, the conversations and ideas you have nurtured are mightily appreciated.