“Black people have been killed for directing their gaze at the wrong person,” Dawoud Bey once said. “I want my subjects to reclaim their right to look, to see, to be seen.” Reclaiming these rights, Bey takes photographs, his work serving as testimony to the hardships of both history and recent times. This retrospective traces Bey’s career, which has spanned a crucial four decades. —E.C.

Dawoud Bey: An American Project
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Whitney Museum of American Art / New York / Art
Whitney Museum of American Art / New York / Art
Dawoud Bey, “A Boy in Front of the Loew’s 125th Street Movie Theater, Harlem, NY,” 1976 © Dawoud Bey. Courtesy the artist, Sean Kelly Gallery, Stephen Daiter Gallery, and Rena Bransten Gallery.
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