Artist Dawoud Bey and Valerie Cassel Oliver, (the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts), discuss Dawoud Bey: Elegy. Organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and curated by Valerie Cassel Oliver, Dawoud Bey: Elegy showcases three photographic series. Mesmerizing and evocative, this exhibition contemplates the harrowing journeys and human realities of the Virginia slave trail, Louisiana plantations, and Ohio's Underground Railroad. Internationally renowned for his Harlem street scenes and expressive portraits, Bey, in these landscapes, meditates on place as profound repository of memory and witness to American history. In this immersive and transportive exhibition, his works poetically imply a human presence, deepening our understanding of African American experiences rarely represented in collective US history.
