Dawoud Bey: Harlem U.S.A and Harlem Redux

Inspired by James VanDerZee’s Harlem portrait photographs of the early 1900s, Dawoud Bey revisited the historic New York neighborhood in the 1970s and exhibited his own photographs as Harlem, U.S.A. This exhibition brings thesse 20th century projects together with Bey’s  Harlem Redux of 2014-16.  In these new images, Bey responds to a sense that Harlem’s unique character and identity are in flux. He shows a neighborhood in transition: once a vibrant and celebrated community now becoming more gentrified and homogenized. The recent large-format, color photographs seek to answer the question: What does a community look like while undergoing such a dramatic transformation?