Exhibition dates: 4th April – 9th July, 2023
Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Two Women at a Parade
1978
Gelatin silver print
Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan Museum purchase
© Dawoud Bey
Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Gallery
Engaging each other in light
Dialogue: Old English dialogas (plural), from Latin from Greek dialogos, from dia ‘through’ + logos ‘word’
“As we define it, dialogue is “a communicative process in which people with different perspectives seek understanding.” To be in dialogue means that participants are not only engaging each other in light of their different views, but they are also striving to achieve a degree of mutual understanding.”
Jason Combs. “What is Dialogue?” on the University of Dayton website Monday October 28, 2019 [Online] Cited 01/07/2023
Short and sweet because I’m not feeling well.
What an inspired pairing for an exhibition. “Each [artist] addresses race, class, representation, and systems of power in their work, creating photographic series grounded in Black history and realities that speak to the human condition.”
From street-based photographs of everyday life to conceptual excavations of Black Histories, they produce incisive thought provoking works “that intermingle past and present, referenc[ing] African Americans whose lives and stories have been co-opted or lost.”
I love them both for their commitment to and passion for life in all its different forms. Bringing people together. Expressing a degree of mutual understanding.
#BlackLivesMatter #AllLivesMatter
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the J. Paul Getty Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Dawoud Bey and Carrie Mae Weems have been friends and colleagues for more than 40 years. Each addresses race, class, representation, and systems of power in their work, creating photographic series grounded in Black history and realities that speak to the human condition. This exhibition sheds light on their unique trajectories and modes of presentation, and their shared consciousness and principles. Organised by the Grand Rapids Art Museum.
Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
The Woman in the Light, Harlem, NY
1980
Gelatin silver print
© Dawoud Bey
Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Gallery
Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Self and Shadow, New York, NY
1980
Gelatin silver print
© Dawoud Bey
Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Gallery
Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Young Man Resting on an Exercise Bike, Amityville, NY
1988
Gelatin silver print
© Dawoud Bey
Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Gallery
Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Couple in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY
1990
Gelatin silver print Getty Museum
© Dawoud Bey
In 1976 I had been making photographs for a couple of years. I had certainly been looking at a lot more photographs than I had actually made. From looking at photographs in books and magazines and going to exhibitions of pictures by Mike Disfarmer at MoMA, Richard Avedon at Marlborough, and haunting whatever other places there were to see photographs in New York in the early 1970s, I had begun to educate myself, with the intent of adding something to the conversation through my own pictures.
The artist Janet Henry, who was from the same Jamaica, Queens neighborhood that I lived in, had gotten a job in the Education Department at the Studio Museum in Harlem, then located above a Kentucky Fried Chicken on 125th Street and Fifth Avenue in a large second floor loft space. When Frank Stewart, the museum’s staff photographer and photo teacher, left to do a commissioned project in Cuba, Janet called me and asked if I would take over the class. On the first day of class a few students straggled in. One of them, a seemingly shy woman with big expressive eyes, introduced herself, “Hi, my name is Carrie. Do you think I could be a photographer?” she asked, holding her Leica camera in her hand. That began what has now been 33 years of friendship and camaraderie with one of the most brilliant people I know.
From the very beginning, Carrie Mae Weems has had a sharp intelligence that was looking for a way into the world. From her early documentary photographs to the more expansive and materially varied recent works, she has consistently set out to visually define the world on her own terms and to redefine for all of us the nature of the world that we are in. After all these years I still anticipate her work with a fresh sense of wonderment, knowing that her restless search for the deeper meaning of things will yield a continuing rich trove of objects and images. On a Sunday morning in May I called from my home in Chicago to reconnect with my dear friend while she was traveling in Seville, Spain.
Dawoud Bey quoted in “Carrie Mae Weems by Dawoud Bey,” on the BOMB Magazine website July 1, 2009 [Online] Cited 18/06/2023
Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Taneesha
1999
Dye diffusion prints
Collection of Jack and Sandra Guthman
© Dawoud Bey
Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Gallery
Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
The Birmingham Project: Wallace Simmons and Eric Allums
2012
Inkjet prints
Rennie Collection, Vancouver
© Dawoud Bey
Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Gallery
Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
The Birmingham Project: Taylor Falls and Deborah Hackworth
2012
Inkjet prints
Rennie Collection, Vancouver
© Dawoud Bey
Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Gallery
Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
The Birmingham Project: Braxton McKinney and Lavone Thomas
2012
Inkjet prints
Rennie Collection, Vancouver
© Dawoud Bey
Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Gallery
Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
The Birmingham Project: Betty Selvage and Faith Speights
2012
Inkjet prints
Rennie Collection, Vancouver
© Dawoud Bey
Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Gallery
Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Boy on Skateboard, Harlem, NY
2014
Inkjet print
© Dawoud Bey
Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Gallery
Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Former Renaissance Ballroom Site, Harlem, NY
2015
Inkjet print
© Dawoud Bey
Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Gallery
Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Untitled #15 (Forest with Small Trees)
2017
Gelatin silver print
Getty Museum, purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council
© Dawoud Bey
Since meeting at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1977, Dawoud Bey and Carrie Mae Weems have been intellectual colleagues and companions.
From the outset of their careers, both have operated from a deep social commitment to participate in, describe, and define culture. In seeking to express themselves fully, each has expanded possibilities within photography and video to address their chosen subjects.
Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems: In Dialogue, on view April 4 through July 9, 2023, brings together for the first time a focused selection of work from a period of over 40 years by two of today’s most important and influential photo-based artists. Each grapples with issues of race, class, and representation in their work, making art grounded in the experiences and realities of Black Americans while also speaking to the broader human condition.
“The Museum’s Department of Photographs has made great strides in recent years in building an exhibitions program that highlights more expansive narratives of photographic history,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “Dawoud Bey and Carrie Mae Weems are two artists who reframe American traumas that have been ignored or simplified in the national historical record. We are proud to showcase their work in dialogue with one another.”
Jim Ganz, senior curator of photographs, adds, “These artists are two of the most dynamic and insightful of our time. As presented in this extraordinary exhibition, their eloquent dialogue gives unique perspective on their shared concerns as image makers.”
Dawoud Bey (American, born 1953) creates photographs that focus on individuals, communities, and important but often overlooked American histories. His carefully composed images convey the dignity and rich inner lives of his subjects. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953) first gained recognition in the 1980s for exploring identity, race, power, and history, themes that still fuel her art. Over her career, Weems has turned increasingly to staged photography and the use of text to heighten the emotional intensity of her work.
This exhibition is divided into five sections, starting with early pictures that both artists made in the photodocumentary tradition and followed by ambitious, groundbreaking explorations of the medium as it developed technologically and artistically. The exhibition then focuses on how both artists moved beyond candid pictures of everyday life and began making larger scale work that is more planned than spontaneous. Bey’s portraiture evolved from street-based glimpses of the world made with a handheld camera to portraits that are formal but intimate, in which his subjects appear at ease and engage directly with the lens. With her Kitchen Table Series, Weems transitioned from representing real people in their natural environments to creating staged photo essays. For each artist, the techniques developed in this period became the foundation for future projects.
In Resurrecting Black Histories, each artist addresses the 19th century and its legacies in distinctive ways. Bey’s carefully composed landscapes evoke the experience of fleeing along the Underground Railroad, the clandestine network that helped enslaved people escape the South. Weems, by incorporating texts that intermingle past and present, references African Americans whose lives and stories have been co-opted or lost.
In Memorial & Requiem, Bey and Weems reference traumatic 20th-century events. They worked with community partners to stage scenes meant to reinvigorate discussion of the American legacy of racial violence. Each photographer also created a related video, bringing their own sensibility – Bey’s searching, intimate gaze; Weems’ choreographed social commentary – to the moving image, using sequencing and sound to deepen engagement with American history.
The exhibition ends with Revelation in the Landscape, where both Bey and Weems contemplate the built environments in which we live and how those spaces affect our perceptions of the world and ourselves. Bey returns to the Harlem neighbourhoods he photographed in the late 1970s, tracking the changes wrought by gentrification. Weems photographs imposing sites in Rome, inserting herself into historical places imbued with power and legacy. Both series reveal the economic and institutional forces that shape daily life.
In conjunction with the exhibition Getty has created a community program inspired by the exhibition, L.A.: In Dialogue. This program brings Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems: In Dialogue to a wider Los Angeles community, furthering the influence of the two artists and introducing their work to a new generation of artists and viewers. The artist-led program will host educational workshops for local teens and young adult photographers, and will teach participants techniques in black-and-white photography and the artistic practice of capturing portraiture and place. They will explore themes from the exhibition, collaborate with peers, and explore their local communities: Culver City (Black Image Center), South L.A. (LA Commons), Downtown L.A. (Inner-City Arts), and Venice Beach (Venice Arts). This program will result in a satellite exhibition that will open in June 2023.
Related programming includes Dawoud Bey and Carrie Mae Weems in Conversation on Tuesday, April 4 at 4pm. That evening at 7pm, the Museum presents master saxophonist David Murray in concert with his newly formed quartet as part of the exhibition programming.
Press release from the J. Paul Getty Museum
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
First Self Portrait
1975
Gelatin silver print
© Carrie Mae Weems
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Harlem Street
1976-1977
Gelatin silver print
© Carrie Mae Weems
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Woman in Shorts, Boardwalk, Santa Monica
1980-1982
Gelatin silver print
© Carrie Mae Weems
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Reclining Girl, Fiji
1982-1983
Gelatin silver print
© Carrie Mae Weems
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled (Woman and daughter with children)
1990
Gelatin silver print
© Carrie Mae Weems
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled (Woman standing alone)
1990
Gelatin silver print
© Carrie Mae Weems
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled (Woman and Daughter with Makeup)
1990
Gelatin silver print
© Carrie Mae Weems
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
See No Evil
1991
Dye diffusion print (Polaroid Polacolor)
61 × 50.5cm (24 × 19 7/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
© Carrie Mae Weems
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Road Sign
1991-1992
Gelatin silver print
© Carrie Mae Weems
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled (Ebo Landing)
1992
Two gelatin silver prints and one screenprinted text panel
© Carrie Mae Weems
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
You Became a Scientific Profile / An Anthropological Debate / A Negroid Type / A Photographic Subject
1995-1996
From From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried
© Carrie Mae Weems
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
The Edge of Time – Ancient Rome
2006
Chromogenic print
© Carrie Mae Weems
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
The Tragedy of Hiroshima
2008
Inkjet print
© Carrie Mae Weems
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
The pose of the figures, other than the obvious reference to the Pieta, reminds me of that famous and most moving Eugene W. Smith photograph Tomoko and Mother in the Bath (1971)
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