Dawoud Bey embraces the darkness in new Underground Railroad Project
Feb. 09, 2018
The Chicago-based photographer Dawoud Bey, who won the coveted MacArthur Foundation’s MacArthur Genius Grant last month, has given The Art Newspaper an exclusive glimpse of his new project based on the Underground Railroad, the network of people that helped African American slaves escape into free states and Canada in the 19th century. The series, which is due to go on show at next summer’s Front Triennial (14 July-30 September 2018), depicts night-time landscapes in Cleveland that reflect the city’s pre-Civil War history as a site of the Underground Railroad.
Dawoud Bey, Untitled #1 (Picket Fence and Farmhouse) from Night Coming Tenderly, 2017. Black Archival pigment prints on dibond, 32 x 40 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, and Stephen Daiter, Chicago.