Dawoud Bey: Street Portraits
Denver Art Museum
November 17, 2024 – May 11, 2025
A Young Man Resting on an Exercise Bike,
Amityville, NY, from the series Street Portraits, 1988
Pigment print
Courtesy of the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey
A Couple in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY,
from the series Street Portraits, 1988
Pigment print
Courtesy of the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey
The Denver Art Museum (DAM) presents Dawoud Bey: Street Portraits, featuring 37 portraits by celebrated photographer and 2017 MacArthur Fellow DAWOUD BEY (American, born 1953).
From 1988 to 1991, Dawoud Bey collaborated with Black Americans of all ages whom he met on the streets of various American cities. He asked a cross section of people in these communities to pose for him, creating a space of self-presentation and performance in their urban environments.
“We’re pleased to present the first standalone museum show of this important work,” said Eric Paddock, Curator of Photography for DAM. “Dawoud Bey’s Street Portraits mark a turning point where the deliberate, closely observed portraits he had been making with a handheld camera began to contain what he has called ‘the kind of lush physical description’ he wanted his pictures to convey—and that is a consistent part of all the work he has made since. The slower process of working with a camera on a tripod invited collaboration between the artist and his subjects, making each picture both an experiment and a discovery.”
Dawood Bey used a large format tripod-mounted camera and a unique positive/negative Polaroid film that created both an instant print and a reusable negative. Bey considers photography an ethical practice that requires collaboration between the artist and his subjects. To reciprocate with the people who posed for him, he gave each person a small black-and-white Polaroid print.
"This is the first standalone museum show of Bey’s Street Portraits," said Eric Paddock, Curator of Photography for the DAM. "Each picture is an experiment, a discovery that describes people and the places where they live. At the same time, these photos are attentive to the quality of light on a particular day and the way the artist orchestrates all those things through his camera. This was a transformational work that evolved through the 20 years of Dawoud’s signature photography."
The exhibition is organized by the community the photographs were made: Brooklyn; Washington, D.C.; Rochester; Amityville; and Harlem. Defying racial stereotypes, the resulting photographs reveal the Black subjects in all of their psychologically rich complexity, presenting themselves openly and intimately to the camera, the viewer, and the world.
DENVER ART MUSEUM
100 W. 14th Avenue Pkwy, Denver, CO 80204
