Dawoud Bey: Elegy draws upon the factual and imagined realities of the early African American presence in the United States. Including over forty black-and-white photographs and two film installations, the exhibition elucidates the deeply profound historical memory still embedded in geography at historically significant sites in Virginia, Louisiana and Ohio. Through the interweaving of three photographic series—”Stony the Road “(2023), “In This Here Place” (2019), and “Night Coming Tenderly, Black” (2017)—Bey offers a framework through which to conceptualize the landscapes of Virginia, Louisiana, and Ohio (respectively) through images that convey the memories of our shared American past.

Each series is based upon Bey’s in-depth research that is amplified and reimagined for our contemporary moment. His most recent project, Stony the Road, reframes the path taken by over 350,000 enslaved Africans forced to march to holding cells for auction in Richmond, Virginia. The accompanying film was made in collaboration with cinematographer Bron Moyi and dancer, choreographer and dance historian, Dr. E. Gaynelle Sherrod, who created the soundtrack.  The film installation takes its title from that number and reimagines that experience both visually and sonically.  For the series In This Here Place, Bey spent significant time on five former plantations outside of New Orleans. At each location, Bey focuses solely on the spaces and structures that had been traversed or inhabited by enslaved people. In vivid color, the accompanying film Evergreen animates that landscape in a different way, with an emotionally powerful soundtrack by composer and vocalist Imani Uzuri.  For Night Coming Tenderly, Black, Bey’s richly printed photographs evoke the realities of life for African Americans moving through a dangerous landscape to secure their own freedom on the Underground Railroad. In each of these projects, Bey’s immersive renderings of historical sites encourage every viewer to consider how the history and memory of slavery continues to impact our present day.

Dawoud Bey: Elegy is organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and is curated by Valerie Cassel Oliver, Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. Presentation of the exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art is coordinated by Brian Piper, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints and Drawings and is supported by David and Susanne Purvis, Tod and Kenya Smith, and Stewart and Renee Peck. Additional support is provided by the Del and Ginger Hall Photography Fund and the A. Charlotte Mann and Joshua Mann Pailet Endowment. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

About Dawoud Bey

American photographer Dawoud Bey, photo by Frank Ishman

Groundbreaking American artist and MacArthur Fellow Dawoud Bey examines the Black past and present. His photographs and film installations have been exhibited widely in museums and galleries throughout the United States and Europe. Bey’s work has been the subject of numerous  major solo museum exhibitions and retrospectives, including Dawoud Bey: An American Project organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art (2020-2022), and Elegy at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (2023-2024) and New Orleans Museum of Art (2025-2026); and Dawoud Bey: Street Portraits at the Denver Art Museum (2024-2025).

His work has been the subject of several monographs, including a forty-year retrospective monograph Seeing Deeply (University of Texas Press, 2017), and the recent Street Portraits (MACK Books, 2021). His critical writings on contemporary art and photography have appeared in a range of publications. A major publication, Elegy (Aperture/VMFA, 2023), brings together the history projects and landscape-based work Bey has made since 2012 and accompanied the exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.  

Dawoud Bey lives and works in Chicago and New York. He is a Critic and alumnus at Yale University and is Professor Emeritus at Columbia College, Chicago. He is represented by Sean Kelly Gallery, NY and LA, Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago, and Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco.