I first became aware of Dawoud Bey at the end of 2018, in Miami Beach, when I was out there working on this fun #MiamiArtWeek2018 content.
I remember it was a real the-rain-has-passed kinda Sunday afternoon on Indian Beach Park, where the PULSE Miami Beach art fair had set up shop for its 14th edition. (FYI, after 15 years, PULSE is re-branding, re-aligning, and moving to the mainland as VOLTA Miami come the 2020 season this December, in whatever shape all o’ that should take). The crowd was light, probably on account of the weather, likely on account of it being airport o’clock soon. But there I was.
One of the first works of art I saw as soon as I walked into that tent a hop and a skip from the Atlantic, in the Rena Bransten Gallery booth (reppin’ the 415, btw), was “A Boy Eating a Foxy Pop, Brooklyn, NY, 1988,” by Bey.
Two years later, I was excited this past winter, when I learned that the SFMOMA was planning to showcase a retrospective of this American photographer’s work in “An American Project,” an exhibition that opened as scheduled on Feb. 15 and that was due to close this month after it’d had a nice, regular, uneventful run. But then the pandemic happened, and I never did get to see and learn more about this artist’s work, which the museum describes as seeking “to depict communities and histories that have largely remained underrepresented or even unseen.”
Not anymore.
Quit your search. You have found.
King of Cups 