Art History from Home: / Dawoud Bey: An American Project Thurs, Aug 19, 2021, 12 pm

Art History from Home:
Dawoud Bey: An American Project

Thurs, Aug 19, 2021
12 pm

Two portraits of a young person arranged as a diptych: one a close-up of their face; and the other a close-up of their left hand draped across their right arm, with the subjects's face slightly out of focus
Two portraits of a young person arranged as a diptych: one a close-up of their face; and the other a close-up of their left hand draped across their right arm, with the subjects's face slightly out of focus

Dawoud Bey, John, 1999. Two dye diffusion transfer prints (Polaroid), overall: 30 1/2 × 47 in. (77.5 × 119.4 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from Ann and Steven Ames 2000.95a-b. © Dawoud Bey

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This event will have automated closed captions through Zoom. Live captioning is available for public programs and events upon request with seven business days advance notice. We will make every effort to provide accommodation for requests made outside of that window of time. To place a request, please contact us at accessfeedback@whitney.org or (646) 666-5574 (voice). Relay and voice calls welcome.

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Online, via Zoom

This series of online talks highlights works in the Museum’s collection and current exhibitions to illuminate critical topics in American art from 1900 to the present. During each thirty-minute session, participants are invited to comment and ask questions through a moderated chat for a fifteen-minute Q&A following the talk. Sessions are available live only, Tuesdays at 6 pm and Thursdays at 12 pm, but topics and speakers do periodically repeat. Check back here for more sessions added regularly.

This session explores the work of photographer Dawoud Bey, who uses his camera to visualize communities and histories that have been underrepresented. From his tender and perceptive portraits to more recent work that takes a historic turn, Bey’s images pose existential questions that suggest not just a kind of personal expression but the power and possibility of bearing witness through photography.   

Josh Lubin-Levy is a Joan Tisch Senior Teaching Fellow at the Whitney and recently completed his Ph.D. in performance studies at NYU. For the past ten years, Lubin-Levy has worked as a dance dramaturg and performance curator, and is the editor-in-chief of the Movement Research Performance Journal. He currently teaches in the department of visual studies at the New School and at Wesleyan University.


On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

On the Hour projects can contain motion and sound. To respect your accessibility settings autoplay is disabled.