Dawoud Bey
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Dawoud Bey (born David Edward Smikle; November 25, 1953) is an American
photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...
, artist and educator known for his large-scale art photography and street photography
portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...
s, including American adolescents in relation to their community, and other often
marginalized Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. In the EU context, the Euro ...
subjects. In 2017, Bey was named a MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and is regarded as one of the "most innovative and influential photographers of his generation". Bey is a professor and Distinguished Artist at Columbia College Chicago. According to ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', "in the seemingly simple gesture of photographing Black subjects in everyday life, ey, an African American,">African_American.html" ;"title="ey, an African American">ey, an African American,helped to introduce Blackness in the context of fine art long before it was trendy, or even accepted"


Early life and education

Born David Edward Smikle in New York City's Jamaica, Queens neighborhood, he changed his name to Dawoud Bey in the early 1970s. According to the New York Times, "'Dawoud' is Arabic for David, and 'Bey' is in honor of Chief Bey, James Hawthorne Bey, a jazz percussionist whom Bey sought out n his youthto learn traditional African drumming." Bey graduated from Benjamin N. Cardozo High School. He studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York from 1977 to 1978, and spent the next two years as part of the CETA-funded Cultural Council Foundation Artists Project. In 1990, he graduated with a BFA in
Photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...
from
Empire State College Empire State University (SUNY Empire) is a public university headquartered in Saratoga Springs, New York. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. Empire State University is a multi-site institution offering associate degre ...
, and received his MFA from Yale University School of Art in 1993. Bey didn't receive his first camera until he was 15, and has stated until that point he wanted to become a musician. Early musical inspirations included
John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...
and early photography inspirations were James Van Der Zee and Roy Decarava. In his youth, Bey joined the Black Panthers Party and sold their newspaper on street corners.


Career

Bey does not consider his work to be traditional documentary. He'll pose subjects, remind them of gestures and sometimes give them accessories. Over the course of his career, Bey has participated in more than 20 artist residencies, which have allowed him to work directly his subjects. A product of the 1960s, Bey said both he and his work are products of the attitude, "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." This philosophy significantly influenced his artistic practice and resulted in a way of working that is both community-focused and collaborative in nature. Bey's earliest photographs, in the style of street photography, evolved into a seminal five-year project documenting the everyday life and people of
Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...
in ''Harlem USA'' (1975–1979) that was exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1979. In 2012, the
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...
mounted the first complete showing of the "Harlem, USA" photographs since that original exhibition, adding several never before printed photographs to the original group of twenty-five vintage prints. The complete group of photographs were acquired at that time by the AIC. During the 1980s, Bey collaborated with the artist David Hammons, documenting the latter's performance pieces - ''Bliz-aard Ball Sale'' and ''Pissed Off''. Over time Bey proves that he develops a bond with his subjects with being more political. The article "Exhibits Challenge Us Not to Look Away Photographers Focus on Pain, Reality in the City" by Carolyn Cohen from the ''
Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...
'', identifies Bey's work as having a "definite political edge" to it according to Roy DeCarava. He writes more about the
aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...
of Beys work and how it is associated with
documentary photography Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically undertaken as professional ph ...
and how his work shows
empathy Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on another person's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. There are more (sometimes conflicting) definitions of empathy that include but are ...
for his subjects. This article also mentions Bey exhibiting his work at the Walker Art Center, where Kelly Jones identifies the strength of his work and his relationship with his subjects once again. Of his work with teenagers Bey has said, "My interest in young people has to do with the fact that they are the arbiters of style in the community; their appearance speaks most strongly of how a community of people defines themselves at a particular historical moment."Kellie Jones, "Dawoud Bey: Portraits in the Theater of Desire" in ''Dawoud Bey: Portraits 1975-1995'' ed. by A.D. Coleman, Jock Reynolds, Kellie Jones, and Dawoud Bey (Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 1995) 48. During a residency at the Addison Gallery of American Art in 1992, Bey began photographing students from a variety of high schools both public and private, in an effort to "reach across lines of presumed differences" among the students and communities. This new direction in his work guided Bey for the next fifteen years, including two additional residencies at the Addison, an ample number of similar projects across the country, and culminated in a major 2007 exhibition and publication of portraits of teenagers organized by Aperture and entitled ''Class Pictures''. Alongside each of the photographs in ''Class Pictures'', is a personal statement written by each subject. " eymanages to capture all the complicated feelings of being young — the angst, the weight of enormous expectations, the hope for the future — with a single look." ‘''The Birmingham Project''’ (2012) is based on the terrorist-bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in
Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Jefferson County, Alabama, Jefferson County. The population was 200,733 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List ...
and its victims that occurred on Sunday the 15th of September 1963. The explosion created a hole that was "large enough to drive a big truck through". The 1963
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
report states that the bombing killed 4 children; Addie Collins, Carol Robertson, Cynthia Wesley (all aged 14) and Denise McNair (age 10) as well as injuring 16 other people. 2 African American boys, James Johnny Robinson (age 16) and Virgil Ware (age 13) were also killed by police in racially motivated attacks after a resulting segregation rally. Each photograph in the project is a juxtaposition of two portraits of Birmingham residents. One of a person the same age as the victims when they died and the other of an adult the age of the victim should they have survived. These diptychs are accompanied by a split-screen video titled ‘''9.15.63’'' which recreates the journey of a car-ride to the church from the perspective of a child. The video shows locations "charged with significance for the black community in Birmingham during the
Civil Rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...
era—a schoolroom, a lunch counter, a barbershop, and a beauty parlor". ‘''Night Coming Tenderly, Black''’ (2017) is a series of 25 photographs by Bey that reimagines the final part of the journey along the ‘ Underground Railroad’. The inspiration for the project stems from Roy DeCarava’s (1919-2009) dark photography. The exhibition title was inspired by a line from a poem titled ‘''Dream Variations''’ by Langston Hughes. The ‘Underground Railroad’ was not a physical railroad but a system in early-mid 19th century U.S.A. It consisted of routes, safehouses and abolitionists that helped fugitive-slaves escape from southern states to northern states and Canada until the
Emancipation Proclamation The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. The Proclamation had the eff ...
in 1863. It was called the ‘ Underground Railroad’ as its operations had to be conducted secretly at night but also because railroad terms served as code words. Bey explains that the intention of the project was "to recreate the spatial and sensory experiences of those moving furtively through the darkness." These landscape photographs, that were taken in the day were printed in dark black and grey tones which allowed details to emerge slowly. He explains these dark tones as being "a metaphor for an enveloping physical darkness, a passage to liberation that was a protective cover for the escaping African American slaves." ‘''Dawoud Bey: 2 American projects''’ is a hardcover book published in 2020 that combines 2 of Dawoud Bey’s projects; ‘''The Birmingham project’'' and ‘''Night Coming Tenderly, Black''’. The book was designed by Pentagram for ‘''An American Project’''; a retrospective of Bey’s work in 2020 held in SFMOMA and co-organised by the Whitney Museum of American Art. Across Bey’s career he has become known for his community-based work. He states that his photography "is an ethical practice requiring collaboration with his subjects". In recent times, his practice has focused on presenting the histories of black communities through the visualisation of their contemporary lives. The photography in ‘''Dawoud Bey: Two American Projects''’ is a departure from Bey’s colour photography. The monochrome images of ‘''The Birmingham Project''’ and ‘''Night Coming Tenderly, Black''’ show a "focus on historical events and collective memory". This allows them to tell a linked story of "past and present, landscapes and portraits, slavery and terrorism." Published by
Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...
, and edited by Corey Keller and Elisabeth Sherman, it presents the projects in tandem and includes the poem ‘''Dream Variations''’ by Langston Hughes as well as accompanying texts by Steven Nelson, Torkwase Dyson, Claudia Rankine and Imani Perry to contextualise Bey’s work historically and thematically. Bey has lived in Chicago, Illinois since 1998. He is a professor of art and Distinguished College Artist at Columbia College Chicago.


Awards

*1983: Artist fellowship at Creative Artists Public Service (CAPS), New York *1986: Artist fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts *1991: Regional fellowship from the
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...
*2002: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship *2017: MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation *2019: Art Award, Infinity Awards, International Center of Photography, New York *2021: Induction into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum


Exhibitions

Bey has exhibited in a number of solo and group shows including ''Dawoud Bey: Portraits 1975-1995'' at the Walker Art Center in 1995, ''Dawoud Bey'' at the Queens Museum of Art in 1998, ''Dawoud Bey: The Chicago Project'' at the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art in 2003, ''Dawoud Bey: Detroit Portraits'' at the
Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is a museum institution located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan. It has list of largest art museums, one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it cove ...
in 2004, and ''Class Pictures'', organized by Aperture Foundation and on view initially at the Addison Gallery of American Art in 2007, and then touring to museums throughout the country for four years, including the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the Milwaukee Art Museum among others. His work "The Birmingham Project" commemorates the six young
African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...
killed in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. The exhibition opened at the Birmingham Museum of Art in September 2013, fifty years after the event. The exhibition opened at George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film in 2016. In early 2019, the Art Institute of Chicago hosted an exhibition titled "Dawoud Bey: Night Coming Tenderly, Black", consisting of twenty-five black and white photographs that were captured along the Underground Railroad in Cleveland and Hudson, Ohio. A retrospective exhibition, titled "An American Project" was curated by the Whitney Museum and SFMOMA in 2019-2021, traveling to San Francisco, the High Museum in Atlanta, and New York City. From November 18, 2023 to February 25, 2024, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) hosted Dawoud Bey: Elegy. The exhibition included the film installations '350,000' and 'Evergreen' along with a trilogy of photo series: 'Stony the Road,' commissioned by the VMFA, 'In This Here Place' as well as 'Night Coming Tenderly, Black'.


Collections

Bey's photographs are included in many permanent collections in the United States and internationally, such as the Pérez Art Museum Miami,
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...
,
Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...
,
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...
, Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum, J. Paul Getty Museum, the
Museum of Contemporary Photography A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers ...
,
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...
, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim, among others.


Publications

* ''Portraits 1975–1995''. With essays by Kellie Jones, with A.D. Coleman and Jessica Hagedorn, photography (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1995). * ''The Chicago Project''. With essays by Jacqueline Terrassa and Stephanie Smith (Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, 2003). * ''Class Pictures: Photographs by Dawoud Bey''. With essays by Taro Nettleton, interview with
Carrie Mae Weems Carrie Mae Weems (born April 20, 1953) is an American artist working in text, fabric, audio, digital images and Video installation, installation video, and is best known for her photography. She achieved prominence through her early 1990s photog ...
(New York: Aperture, 2007). * ''Harlem, U.S.A''. With essays by Matthew Witkovsky and Sharifa Rhodes-Pitt (Chicago:
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...
and
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
Press, 2012) * ''Picturing People''. With an essay by Arthur Danto, Interview by Hamza Walker (Chicago: Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, 2012) * ''The Birmingham Project''. With an essay by Ron Platt (Birmingham Museum of Art, 2012) * ''Seeing Deeply''. With essays by Sarah Lewis, Deborah Willis, David Travis, Hilton Als, Jacqueline Terrassa, Rebecca Walker, Maurice Berger, and Leigh Raiford (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018) * ''Street Portraits''. London: Mack, 2021. . With an essay by Greg Tate.


References


Further reading

*Bey, Dawoud, Jacqueline Terrassa, Stephanie Smith, and Elizabeth Meister. ''Dawoud Bey: The Chicago Project''. Chicago, IL: Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, 2003. *Braff, Phyllis. “Dawoud Bey: 'The Southampton Project'.” ''New York Times''. April 4, 1999, Arts Section, East Coast Edition *Coleman, A.D., Jock Reynolds, Kellie Jones, and Dawoud Bey. ''Dawoud Bey: Portraits 1975-1995''. Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 1995 *Cotter, Holland. “Art in Review.” ''New York Times''. Oct 25, 1996, Arts Section, East Coast Edition. *“Dawoud Bey: Portraits.” ''Art in America''. Vol. 83 no.8 (August 1995): 23. *Glueck, Grace. “Faces of the Centuries, Famous and Far From It.” ''New York Times''. September 17, 1999, Arts Section, East Coast Edition. *Johnson, Ken. “Dawoud Bey.” May 10, 2002, p. B35. *Johnson, Ken. “Enigmatic Portraits of Teen-Agers Free of All Context.” ''New York Times''. August 21, 1998, Arts Section, East Coast Edition. *Kimmelman, Michael. “In New Jersey, Evolution in Retrospectives.” ''New York Times''. July 18, 1997, Arts Section, East Coast Edition. * Leffingwell, Edward. “Dawoud Bey at Gorney Bravin + Lee.” ''Art In America''. Vol. 101 no. 10 (November 2002): 154-155 *Lifson, Ben. “Dawoud Bey.” ''Artforum International''. Vol. 35 no. 6 (February 1997): 87. *Lippard, Lucy. Nueva Luz photographic journal, Volume 1#2 (En Foco, Bronx: 1985) *Loke, Margaret. “Review: Dawoud Bey.” ''ARTnews''. Vol. 96 no. 2 (February 1997): 118. *McQuaid, Cate. “Teens in America, pose by pose.” ''Boston Globe''. September 23, 2007, Arts Section. *Reid, Calvin. “Dawoud Bey at David Beitzel.” ''Art in America''. Vol. 85 no. 4 (April 1997): 113. *Reid, Calvin. “Dawoud Bey.” ''Arts Magazine''. Vol. 65 no. 1 (Sept. 1990): 76. *Reynolds, Jock, Taro Nettleton, Carrie Mae Weems, and Dawoud Bey. ''Class Pictures: Photographs by Dawoud Bey''. New York: Aperture, 2007. *Schwabsky, Barry. “Redeeming the Humanism in Portraiture.” ''New York Times''. April 20, 1997, Arts Section, East Coast Edition. *Sengupta, Somini. “Portrait of Young People as Artists.” ''New York Times''. January 18, 1998 Arts Section, East Coast Edition. *Zdanovics, Olga. “Dawoud Bey.” ''Art Papers''. Vol. 22 no. 3 (May/June 1998): 43–4.


External links


Dawoud Bey
on the African American Visual Artists Database {{DEFAULTSORT:Bey, Dawood MacArthur Fellows 1953 births Living people African-American contemporary artists American contemporary artists African-American photographers Benjamin N. Cardozo High School alumni Columbia College Chicago faculty Yale School of Art alumni Empire State University alumni 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people