September 25 — “Class Pictures: A Conversation with Dawoud Bey”
Says Dawoud Bey: “Artists used to be the ones who led the charge to challenge the system; they were the proverbial ‘fly in the buttermilk,’ the monkey wrench that mucked up the system and made it act, function, and exist in new ways. Artists were the ones who created paradigms of everything the system was not. Marvin Gaye’s signature song ‘What’s Going On?’–a musical critique of a world gone off track–provides an apt framework for looking at the role of art and cultural production in the larger society.”
When: Thursday, September 25 6:30 pm
Where: Deer Zink Pavilion Indianapolis Museum of Art
Artist talk: Free; Opening Part: Public $10 / Students $5 / Members Free
Says the IMA’s blurb:
Chicago-based photographer Dawoud Bey’s teenage subjects defy stereotypes about American youth in this complicated age. Class Pictures: Photographs by Dawoud Bey, an exhibition of 40 large-scale portraits organized by the Aperture Foundation, will be installed in the McCormack Forefront Galleries from September 26-November 21. Senior Curator of Contemporary Art Lisa Freiman will join Bey to discuss his work and his exhibition at the IMA. Supported in part by the IMA Contemporary Art Society. Supported in part by the IMA Contemporary Art Society.
Why does Provocate think you should attend this event?
Another example of how art, and in particular photography, can create rather than reflect honesty. Here’s a description of the exhibition when it was in NY:
Over the last fifteen years, Dawoud Bey has traveled to Detroit, Orlando, San Francisco, New York, and Lawrence and Andover in Massachusetts, photographing students in both public and private high schools. He spends between three and four weeks at each school, getting to know the kids, the teachers, and the overall environment. The vast majority of the photos show the subject in a classroom, often seated in a chair and/or at a desk or table, looking straight into the camera. Each photo is accompanied by a short autobiographical statement in which the student reveals something about themselves. The honesty of their words — the kids share a remarkable amount of personal information and private thoughts — goes hand in hand with the honesty of the portraits, taken at a time when these teenagers are just starting to really investigate and explore who they are and what their role in the world might be. It’s all a lot more serious than you might imagine, and wholly compelling.
If you think this sounds interesting, be sure to check out …
The IMA has other discussions of photography connected to the 50th anniversary exhibition of Robert Frank’s photos from Les Americains. Be sure to attend the talk by local Pulitzer Prize winning photo-journalist Bill Foley September 19. You can see another aspect of photo-art at the display of contemporary Inuit art opening November 15 at the Eiteljorg.
Know before you go:
View the slide show of “Class Pictures” put together by TIME.
And for your listening pleasure …
Given Bey’s reference to Marvin G, could there be another choice?
