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Dawoud Bey , b. Nov 25, 1953

Kevin

2005
40 in. x 32 in. (101.6 cm x 81.28 cm)

Medium and Support: Pigment print

Credit Line: Gift of the artist

Accession Number: 2011.28

Commentary

Kevin is one of Dawoud Bey’s numerous large-scale color photographic portraits of high school students comprising the series, Class Pictures. For the project, Bey photographed diverse students from public and private schools across the U.S. including Phillips Academy and Lawrence High School as well as Detroit, Orlando, San Francisco, and New York City.

At the start of the sitting, each subject wrote a brief autobiographical statement that was not shared with Bey until after the portrait was taken. By turns poignant, funny, or harrowing, these revealing words are an integral part of the project. Describing his process, Bey writes “I want to try to make the fullest, most interesting and compelling visual description of the person and then, hopefully when you put the two of them together--my visual voice with their literary voice--you end up with this more dimensional thing.”

Exhibition List

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

80 @ 80 Addison Gallery of American Art , 10/15/2011 - 12/31/2011
Seen and Unseen Addison Gallery of American Art , 9/1/2017 - 12/31/2017
Come As You Are: American Youth [Phillips Academy Art 400] Addison Gallery of American Art , 11/20/2019 - 3/8/2020

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