Dawoud Bey - Photographs New York Friday, April 5, 2024 | Phillips

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  • “My interest in young people has to do with the fact that they are the arbiters of style in the community; their appearance speaks most strongly of how a community of people defines themselves at a particular historical moment.”
    Dawoud Bey
    Intertwining the conventions of 19th century portraiture with the scale and immediacy of the contemporary Polaroid, Dawoud Bey’s portraits carry an unwavering presence. In 1992, while in residency at the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Andover, Bey began photographing adolescents from varying ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. Abandoning the handheld 35mm camera that he had thus far been using for his street photography, Bey began working with a 20 x 24 in. Polaroid camera. The large-scale equipment forced him indoors to the controlled environment of a studio and, in doing so, brought about a deeper and prolonged engagement with his subjects. 

     

    With each exposure, Bey captured a specific detail of the overall portrait; when assembled together, the result is a multi-panel work underscoring the multi-dimensional nature of his sitters. Over the next 15 years, Bey continued in this vein working with institutions, photographing youth across the country, including Monique, as seen here, whom he photographed in 1994.

    • Provenance

      Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago
      Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
      Private Collection
      Phillips, New York, 8 December 2020, lot 514
      Private Collection, New York

    • Literature

      Bey: Seeing Deeply, pp. 174-175

269

Monique II

1999
Polaroid print triptych.
Each 24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm)
Overall 30 x 73 3/4 in. (76.2 x 187.3 cm)

Signed in ink on a label affixed to the reverse of the frame backing of one print.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$15,000 - 25,000 

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Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs
skrueger@phillips.com
 

Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Chairwoman, Americas
vhallett@phillips.com

Photographs

New York Auction 5 April 2024