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Two Dawoud Bey exhibitions opens this Saturday
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Dawould Bey's "Sandra" (2003)
The Walters Art Museum will host an Opening Day Artist Dialogue with renowned photographer to celebrate the opening of its exhibition Portraits Re/Examined: A Dawoud Bey Project and the partner exhibition Dawoud Bey: Class Pictures at the Contemporary Museum. The lecture will be held in the Walters’ Graham Auditorium at 2 p.m., followed by a reception at the Contemporary beginning at 3 p.m.
At the Walters, Bey and 12 Baltimore-area high school students will discuss the process of curating Portraits Re/Examined. This is a portrait show that explores themes of race, class and identity over the centuries, and the first high school students chosen to co-curate a show at the Walters. The exhibition is the result of a three-week summer residency, during which Bey and the teens selected historic drawings, paintings, and portrait miniatures from the Walters’ private collection to position alongside 10 similarly evocative portraits by Bey. During the discussion, the artist and his protégés will share their experience working with the Walters’ private collection and the challenges and rewards of the project. The students, who did not take part in the exhibition installation process, will serve as docents at Saturday's opening events.
In conjunction with Portraits Re/Examined, the Contemporary Museum will present Class Pictures. Visitors to the opening reception at 3 p.m. on Saturday, December 13 will be the first to view a collection of 40 of Bey’s striking 40-by-30-inch color prints. The museum will also feature a video installation documenting the creation of the exhibition, for which Bey photographed public and private high school students from a variety of social-economic backgrounds in cities across the country.
Kudos to both the Walters and the Contemporary for finding new and exciting ways to get urban/inner-city young people involved in the city's various museums, rather than simply bringing them in on "educational" field trips. Helping to curate an exhibition allows them to see what goes on behind-the-scenes of the museum, and provides them with experience to work on a real life museum project. It is encouraging to see how the Walter's and Contemporary museums have teamed up to break down the barriers of social/economic and racial stratification in a seemingly conservative museum world, allowing inclusivity to take place. This is the kind of inclusive contemporary art experience we need in our world today!
Dawould Bey works with teens to put together Portraits Re/Examined
Admission to both of these events is FREE.
Additional information about Dawoud Bey: Class Pictures is available online at www.contemporary.org. Information about Portraits Re/Examined can be found by visiting www.thewalters.org.
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