Dawoud Bey: Harlem, U.S.A.
© Dawoud Bey
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The Chicago based photographer, Dawoud Bey is distinguished for his commitment to portraiture as a means for understanding contemporary society, first gaining notoriety as a photographer for his acclaimed series Dawoud Bey: Harlem, U.S.A. in 1979.
In 1979 African American photographer Dawoud Bey (born 1953) held his first solo exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, showing a suite of 25 photographs titled Dawoud Bey: Harlem, U.S.A. Though raised in Queens, Bey and his family had roots in Harlem, and it was a youthful visit to the exhibition Harlem on My Mind at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that gave him the determination to become an artist. In Dawoud Bey: Harlem, USA, the artist takes viewers on a journey through this historic neighborhood. As a young man growing up in Queens, Bey was intrigued by his family’s history in Harlem. His parents met at church there and it was home to many family and friends he visited as a child. |
Bey began making photographs at sixteen, after viewing the work of James VanDerZee (1886–1983) for the first time. VanDerZee chronicled the Harlem community for almost sixty years, and his photographs were part of the contentious 1969 exhibition Harlem on My Mind. The combination of viewing Harlem on My Mind and his family’s relationship to the area led Bey, years later, to begin his Dawoud Bey: Harlem, USA” series (1975-1979). Bey had been in residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem for one year, and he had made the surrounding neighborhood a subject of study since 1975. Rebecca Robertson in Art News commented on the exhibition when it was exhibited in 2012 at the Art Institute of Chicago, “These images are striking for the joy and grace Bey found in a neighborhood in upheaval.” Rachael Dreyer of the Library Journal noted, “The appeal of the work comes from its timelessness…accessible and engaging.”
Dawoud Bey is a professor of art and was named Distinguished College Artist at Columbia College Chicago, where he has taught since 1998. Bey studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York and holds an MFA in photography from Yale University. His work has been extensively exhibited: the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Walker Art Center (1995), a four-year traveling exhibition, called Class Pictures, mounted by Aperture and first shown in 2007 at the Addison Gallery of American Art, a traveling survey exhibition “Dawoud Bey: Picturing People” at the Renaissance Society, Chicago in 2012, the Art Institute of Chicago’s 2012 showing of Harlem, U.S.A. in its entirety and the 2014 Whitney Biennial and many others.
A catalogue of the exhibition is available with images of the entire photographic series and essays by Matthew S. Witkovsky, Richard and Ellen Sandor Chair and Curator, Department of Photography, and Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, author of the monograph Harlem Is Nowhere.
Dawoud Bey is available to attend the openings and engage in conversations.
Dawoud Bey is a professor of art and was named Distinguished College Artist at Columbia College Chicago, where he has taught since 1998. Bey studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York and holds an MFA in photography from Yale University. His work has been extensively exhibited: the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Walker Art Center (1995), a four-year traveling exhibition, called Class Pictures, mounted by Aperture and first shown in 2007 at the Addison Gallery of American Art, a traveling survey exhibition “Dawoud Bey: Picturing People” at the Renaissance Society, Chicago in 2012, the Art Institute of Chicago’s 2012 showing of Harlem, U.S.A. in its entirety and the 2014 Whitney Biennial and many others.
A catalogue of the exhibition is available with images of the entire photographic series and essays by Matthew S. Witkovsky, Richard and Ellen Sandor Chair and Curator, Department of Photography, and Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, author of the monograph Harlem Is Nowhere.
Dawoud Bey is available to attend the openings and engage in conversations.
Number of photographs: 30
Rental fee: $7500
Rental fee: $7500