*click on the images for a full caption*
For the past fifteen years, Dawoud Bey has made striking, large-scale color portraits of students at high schools across the United States. Depicting teenagers from a wide economic, social, and ethnic spectrum—and intensely attentive to their poses and gestures—he has created a highly diverse group portrait of a generation that challenges teenage stereotypes.
At the start of the sitting, each subject wrote a brief autobiographical statement. By turns poignant, funny, or harrowing, these revealing words are an integral part of the project, and the subject’s statement accompanies each photograph in the exhibition. Together, the words and images in Class Pictures off er unusually respectful and perceptive portraits that establish Dawoud Bey as one of the best portraitists at work today.
Aperture, a not-for-profit organization devoted to photography and the visual arts, has organized this traveling exhibition and produced the accompanying publications. Catalogue available.
Sponsors: Office of the Provost, and Office for Inclusion & Intercultural Initiatives, MSU.