Dawoud Bey: An American Project

Apr 17–Oct 3, 2021

Since the mid-1970s, Dawoud Bey (b. 1953) has worked to expand upon what photography can and should be. Insisting that it is an ethical practice requiring collaboration with his subjects, he creates poignant meditations on visibility, power, and race. Bey chronicles communities and histories that have been largely underrepresented or even unseen, and his work lends renewed urgency to an enduring conversation about what it means to represent America with a camera.

Spanning from his earliest street portraits in Harlem to his most recent series imagining an escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad, Dawoud Bey: An American Project attests to the artist’s profound engagement with the Black subject. He is deeply committed to the craft of photography, drawing on the medium's specific tools, processes, and materials to amplify the formal, aesthetic, and conceptual goals of each body of work. Bey views photography not only as a form of personal expression but as an act of political responsibility, emphasizing the necessary and ongoing work of artists and institutions to break down obstacles to access, convene communities, and open dialogues.

Dawoud Bey: An American Project is co-organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition is co-curated by Elisabeth Sherman, Assistant Curator at the Whitney, and Corey Keller, Curator of Photography at SFMOMA.

Generous support for Dawoud Bey: An American Project is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Significant support is provided by the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

In New York, the exhibition is sponsored by

Generous support is provided by Judy Hart Angelo, the John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation, and the Whitney’s National Committee.

Major support is provided by the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation.

Significant support is provided by The Anne Levy Charitable Trust and Jean L. Karotkin and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. 

Additional support is provided by Susan and Arthur Fleischer, Gregory and Aline Gooding, Renee Harbers and Christopher Liddell, Marina and Andrew Lewin, Wynnell Schrenk, and Patricia Villareal and Tom Leatherbury.


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Class Pictures

5

Bey has long understood that the act of representation—as well as the corollary act of being seen—is both powerful and political. In Class Pictures (1992–2006) he once again turned his attention to teenagers, a population he felt was underrepresented and misjudged, seen either as “socially problematic or as engines for a certain consumerism.” The series originated during a residency at the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago, where Bey began working with local high-school students; during residencies at other museums and schools around the country, he expanded the project to capture a geographically and socioeconomically diverse slice of American adolescence.

Working in empty classrooms between class periods, Bey made careful and tender formal color portraits of teens. He then invited them to write brief autobiographical statements to accompany their images, giving his subjects voice as well as visibility. Many of the residencies also included a curatorial project with the students using works in the museums’ collections. While the photographs and texts are what remain of these projects, it is the collaborative undertaking that Bey considers the work of Class Pictures.

  • A portrait of a student resting their arms on a school desk and facing the camera. "I am a hardworking man and I am Black. I have a nice smile and nice long hair. Gerard"
    A portrait of a student resting their arms on a school desk and facing the camera. "I am a hardworking man and I am Black. I have a nice smile and nice long hair. Gerard"

    Dawoud Bey, Gerard, Edgewater High School, Orlando, FL, from Class Pictures, 2003. Pigmented inkjet print (printed 2019), 40 × 32 in. (101.6 × 81.3 cm). Collection of the artist; courtesy Sean Kelly Gallery, New York; Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago; and Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco. © Dawoud Bey

  • A portrait of a student sitting at a school desk and resting their head on their hand. "I grew up in a lesbian family, and I met my dad when I was four years old. My mothers taught me to never judge or discriminate against others, and to look at them for who they really are. I think this point of view is something that is lacking in our world today. I feel so fortunate that I live in a place that I feel represents me perfectly. Every new day for me brings new and exciting adventure. I spend most of my time doing the typical things seventeen-year-olds do, but always find myself trying to take it to the next level, advancing my life as much as possible. Most people would say that I am mature for my age, that I don't act like I am seventeen. The only way I can explain this would be to say to them that I am very content with myself, and what I have accomplished thus far in my life, and I treat each day with the hope that it can be better than the previous. Jordan"
    A portrait of a student sitting at a school desk and resting their head on their hand. "I grew up in a lesbian family, and I met my dad when I was four years old. My mothers taught me to never judge or discriminate against others, and to look at them for who they really are. I think this point of view is something that is lacking in our world today. I feel so fortunate that I live in a place that I feel represents me perfectly. Every new day for me brings new and exciting adventure. I spend most of my time doing the typical things seventeen-year-olds do, but always find myself trying to take it to the next level, advancing my life as much as possible. Most people would say that I am mature for my age, that I don't act like I am seventeen. The only way I can explain this would be to say to them that I am very content with myself, and what I have accomplished thus far in my life, and I treat each day with the hope that it can be better than the previous. Jordan"

    Dawoud Bey, Jordan, School of the Arts, San Francisco, CA, from Class Pictures, 2006. Pigmented inkjet print (printed 2019), 40 × 32 in. (101.6 × 81.3 cm). Collection of the artist; courtesy Sean Kelly Gallery, New York; Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago; and Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco. © Dawoud Bey

  • A portrait of a student sitting on a chair in front of a chalkboard. "When I was about six or seven my father died. This was either the worst or best thing that ever happened to me. In fact, now that I think about it, it was both. That experience was both my blessing and my curse. I don't remember much before the death of my father. For me it feels like that's when life as I know it really began. It's not like I was saddened by the event. I hardly knew my father. His memory only survives in my head because of three scenarios: the way his coarse moustache pricked my cheek when he kissed me, the short collect calls he made from the correctional facility and the photos that my mother keeps under her bed. After his death my mother became incredibly detached. She became a mere exoskeleton of her former self. With a dead father and a deeply depressed mother who basically stopped living, I had no choice but to take care of myself. I became as self-reliant as possible. There was not more time for childhood. I was all about business. Thanks to the death of my father I learned to value independence, hard work, and maturity. This is my blessing. Thanks to the death of my father I grew up much too fast and never learned how to ask anyone for help. I carry my own burdens . . . alone. This is my curse. Kevin"
    A portrait of a student sitting on a chair in front of a chalkboard. "When I was about six or seven my father died. This was either the worst or best thing that ever happened to me. In fact, now that I think about it, it was both. That experience was both my blessing and my curse. I don't remember much before the death of my father. For me it feels like that's when life as I know it really began. It's not like I was saddened by the event. I hardly knew my father. His memory only survives in my head because of three scenarios: the way his coarse moustache pricked my cheek when he kissed me, the short collect calls he made from the correctional facility and the photos that my mother keeps under her bed. After his death my mother became incredibly detached. She became a mere exoskeleton of her former self. With a dead father and a deeply depressed mother who basically stopped living, I had no choice but to take care of myself. I became as self-reliant as possible. There was not more time for childhood. I was all about business. Thanks to the death of my father I learned to value independence, hard work, and maturity. This is my blessing. Thanks to the death of my father I grew up much too fast and never learned how to ask anyone for help. I carry my own burdens . . . alone. This is my curse. Kevin"

    Dawoud Bey, Kevin, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, from Class Pictures, 2005. Pigmented inkjet print (printed 2019), 40 × 32 in. (101.6 × 81.3 cm). Collection of the artist; courtesy Sean Kelly Gallery, New York; Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago; and Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco. © Dawoud Bey

  • A portrait of a student resting their arms on a school desk and facing the camera. "I know that I shouldn't but sometimes I wonder how other people look at me. What do they see first? My Brownness, my beard, my cap, my clothes, the color of my eyes, the design of my tee shirt? I think that people see my skin color first. They probably see me as a Brown guy. Then, they might see my black beard and my white kufi (prayer cap) and figure out that I am Muslim. They see my most earthly qualities first. Brown . . . that's the very color of the earth, the mud from which God created us. Sometime I wonder what color my soul is. I hope that it's the color of heaven. Omar"
    A portrait of a student resting their arms on a school desk and facing the camera. "I know that I shouldn't but sometimes I wonder how other people look at me. What do they see first? My Brownness, my beard, my cap, my clothes, the color of my eyes, the design of my tee shirt? I think that people see my skin color first. They probably see me as a Brown guy. Then, they might see my black beard and my white kufi (prayer cap) and figure out that I am Muslim. They see my most earthly qualities first. Brown . . . that's the very color of the earth, the mud from which God created us. Sometime I wonder what color my soul is. I hope that it's the color of heaven. Omar"

    Dawoud Bey, Omar, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, from Class Pictures, 2005. Pigmented inkjet print (printed 2019), 40 × 32 in. (101.6 × 81.3 cm). Collection of the artist; courtesy Sean Kelly Gallery, New York; Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago; and Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco. © Dawoud Bey

  • A portrait of a student sitting in front of a row of lockers and facing the camera. "My dad's Iranian, and so, my dad didn't want to have me tell that I was Iranian, in my college essay just because I think he might have felt that someone might read it and, you know, be biased against Iranians or something like that, I guess. He's a little sensitive about it sometimes, so just because I'm his little girl and he doesn't want me to be hurt by anything. I didn't know whether or not to put it in 'cause, you know, when he first told me not to tell, it was sort of like, of course I'm going to tell! It's part of who I am! And then it's sort of, well, you know, maybe, I shouldn't. And then, I just ended up saying that he was foreign born, "my father is foreign born," or something like that. Like I'm not going to hide it from the world; it was just this college essay. I mean I wasn't happy about it at first, but then when I saw it from his point of view, I was like, okay. Sarah"
    A portrait of a student sitting in front of a row of lockers and facing the camera. "My dad's Iranian, and so, my dad didn't want to have me tell that I was Iranian, in my college essay just because I think he might have felt that someone might read it and, you know, be biased against Iranians or something like that, I guess. He's a little sensitive about it sometimes, so just because I'm his little girl and he doesn't want me to be hurt by anything. I didn't know whether or not to put it in 'cause, you know, when he first told me not to tell, it was sort of like, of course I'm going to tell! It's part of who I am! And then it's sort of, well, you know, maybe, I shouldn't. And then, I just ended up saying that he was foreign born, "my father is foreign born," or something like that. Like I'm not going to hide it from the world; it was just this college essay. I mean I wasn't happy about it at first, but then when I saw it from his point of view, I was like, okay. Sarah"

    Dawoud Bey, Sarah, University of Chicago Laboratory School, Chicago, IL, from Class Pictures, 2003. Pigmented inkjet print (printed 2019), 40 × 32 in. (101.6 × 81.3 cm). Collection of the artist; courtesy Sean Kelly Gallery, New York; Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago; and Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco. © Dawoud Bey

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Six polaroids combined to make an image of two women seated next to one another
Six polaroids combined to make an image of two women seated next to one another

Dawoud Bey, Martina and Rhonda, Chicago, IL, 1993. Six dye diffusion transfer prints (Polaroid), 48 × 60 in. overall (121.9 × 152.4 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art; gift of Eric Ceputis and David W. Williams 2018.82a-f. © Dawoud Bey

Hear directly from the artist and curator on selected works from the exhibition.

This exhibition was installed on Floors 1 and 8.

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Exhibition Catalogue

Dawoud Bey: Two American Projects catalogue cover.
Dawoud Bey: Two American Projects catalogue cover.

Dawoud Bey (b. 1953) is an American photographer best known for his large-scale portraits of underrepresented subjects and for his commitment to fostering dialogue about contemporary social and political topics. Bey has also found inspiration in the past, and in two recent series, presented together here for the first time, he addresses African American history explicitly, with renderings both lyrical and immediate. In 2012 Bey created The Birmingham Project, a series of paired portraits memorializing the six children who were victims of the Ku Klux Klan’s bombing of Birmingham, Alabama’s 16th Street Baptist Church, a site of mass civil rights meetings, and the violent aftermath. Night Coming Tenderly, Black is a group of large-scale black-and-white landscapes made in 2017 in Ohio that reimagine sites where the Underground Railroad once operated. The book is introduced by an essay exploring the series’ place within Bey’s wider body of work, as well as their relationships to the past, the present, and each other. Additional essays investigate the works’ evocations of race, history, time, and place, addressing the particularities of and resonances between two series of photographs that powerfully reimagine the past into the present.

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In the News

"The retrospective . . . is a testament to [Bey's] photographs’ apparent timelessness."—W Magazine

"In his street photographs and portraits Bey achieves a rare degree of connection with his subjects."—Boston Globe

"Every image is a highlight of a prolific career that examines the various processes of photography as painstakingly as it explores and exposes the human condition."—Forbes

"American photographer Dawoud Bey displays his uncanny ability to get under the skin of his subjects."—The Guardian

"There’s a warmth that’s intrinsic to Bey’s acts of portrait-making."—The New Yorker

". . . Bey understands that the collective aches we feel today are the remnants of yesterday’s agony . . ."—New York Magazine

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Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

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