Since the beginning of his career, Dawoud Bey has used his camera to depict communities and histories that have largely remained underrepresented or even unseen. This full-scale retrospective highlights the artist’s commitment over the course of his four-decade career to portraying the Black subject and African-American history in a manner that is at once direct and poetic, and immediate and symbolic. The exhibition includes his tender and perceptive early portraits of Harlem residents, large-scale color Polaroids, and a series of collaborative word and image portraits of high school students, among others.
Dawoud Bey: An American Project
Dawoud Bey, "Three Women at a Parade, Harlem, NY, from the series Harlem, U.S.A.," 1978; courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, Stephen Daiter Gallery, and Rena Bransten Gallery;© Dawoud Bey
Dawoud Bey, "A Boy in Front of the Loew's 125th Street Movie Theater, Harlem, NY, from the series Harlem, U.S.A.," 1976; courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, Stephen Daiter Gallery, and Rena Bransten Gallery;© Dawoud Bey
Dawoud Bey, "Don Sledge and Moses Austin, Birmingham, AL, from the series The Birmingham Project," 2012; Rennie Collection, Vancouver;© Dawoud Bey
Dawoud Bey, "Girls, Ornaments, and Vacant Lot, Harlem, NY" (2016)
Dawoud Bey, "A Young Man Resting on an Exercise Bike, Amityville, NY"(1988)
Dawoud Bey, "Alva, New York, NY" (1992)
1976
Warhol acquires the first of several compact 35 mm cameras, and over the next 11 years shot approximately 130,000 black-and-white images, claiming that “having a few rolls of film to develop gives me a good reason to get up in the morning.”