Groundbreaking American artist and MacArthur Fellow Dawoud Bey examines the Black past and present. His photographs and film installations engage the oft disappeared histories of the Black presence in America. Bey began his career as a photographer in 1975 with a series of photographs, “Harlem, U.S.A,,” that were exhibited to critical acclaim in his first one-person exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1979. His work has since been the subject of numerous major museum and gallery exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe, with works held in numerous public collections.
Recent solo museum exhibitions include Street Portraits at the Denver Art Museum (November 2024), the first standalone museum show dedicated to this iconic series. Elegy (2023–2024), an exhibition of the artist’s history-based photographs and film works, debuted at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and will travel to the New Orleans Museum of Art later this year. Dawoud Bey: An American Project (2020–2022), organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, toured to the High Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Additionally, his work was featured in the two-person exhibition Dawoud Bey and Carrie Mae Weems: In Dialogue, organized by the Grand Rapids Art Museum, which traveled to the Seattle Art Museum, Tampa Museum of Art, and The Getty Center.
Bey’s conceptual and material evolution is, in part, a desire to find other ways of making his work within the context of his community and museum-based projects. Bey has pioneered programs that redefine how artists engage with institutions, while striving to make those spaces more accessible to the communities they serve. Class Pictures (2002-2006) expands upon a series of portraits the artist first created during a residency in 1992 at the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Andover. In this series Bey collaborated with young people and institutions throughout the United States. These striking, large-scale color portraits of students depict teenagers from a range of economic, social, and ethnic backgrounds, creating a diverse collection of portraits of a generation that challenge teenage stereotypes.
Bey’s journey of growth and transformation encompasses both conceptual and tangible aspects, driven by his desire to explore alternative methods of creating within his community and museum-based endeavors. With his pioneering efforts, Bey has redefined the relationship between artists and institutions, striving to make these spaces more accessible to the diverse communities they serve. One of his notable accomplishments is the Class Pictures series (2002-2006), which builds upon a previous project of portraits created during his residency in 1992 at the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Andover. In this series, Bey collaborated with young individuals and various institutions across the United States, resulting in striking and large-scale color portraits that depict teenagers from a wide range of economic, social, and ethnic backgrounds. These portraits challenge traditional stereotypes of teenagers, creating a diverse and captivating collection capturing the essence of a generation.
www.ftn-books.com has 2 Bey publications now available
