The Art Institute of Chicago presents a solo-exhibition of photographer Dawoud Bey‘s 1970s opus, “Harlem, U.S.A.“. The exhibition will run through Sunday, September 2nd.
Mr. Moore’s Bar-B-Que, 125th St. (1976) / Art Institute of Chicago
by Gwenda Blair
Published on July 25, 2012
“By the mid-’70s Dawoud Bey was using a single-lens reflex camera and had started taking the Harlem street photographs that would eventually make up the Studio Museum show. Unlike most street photographers he worked slowly, taking few pictures and making an average of only three exposures of each subject.”
‘I wanted to show people living their lives,’ Dawoud Bey said. ‘But first I had to learn how to insert myself into their social space and make it seem natural.’ The first time he felt he succeeded was in a photograph, included in ‘Harlem USA,’ that shows a middle-aged man in a black overcoat and bowler hat outside a brick row house.”
A Woman Waiting in the Doorway (1976) / Art Institute of Chicago
” ‘I had figured out the geometry of the space and the interlocking shapes,’ Mr. Bey said. ‘But I needed the quirky little gestures of behavior that mark the individual, the stuff you can’t make up. I needed a way to create a momentary connection that would leave viewers feeling they knew this person.’ ”
“ ‘I step back, fiddle with the camera, do something so they have a chance to get comfortable,’ Dawoud Bey said. ‘Then I watch for the moment — the hand across the knee, the elbow leaning on the chair back — that shows us who these people are and how the narrative of the space and the narrative of two individuals interact.’ ”
Harlem, U.S.A.
Gallery 189 in the Art Institute of Chicago
through Sunday, September 02, 2012
For more information on exhibition, go to: http://www.artic.edu/exhibition/dawoudbey
For the complete New York Times article, go to: http://nyti.ms/QHzIRa
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