FRONT Porch
1470 E. 105th St.
Cleveland 44106

FRONT International presents The Glenville Exchanges: Dialogs between FRONT visiting artists and Cleveland based artists.

Dawoud Bey photographs people and things that may otherwise be taken for granted. A 2017 MacArthur Fellow recipient, Bey features subjects who he says “are not always in the larger social conversation.” For the FRONT Triennial, Dawoud Bey’s exhibition will expand the notion of the documentary nature of photography and question the limits of historical reportage.

At The Glenville Exchanges, Bey will have a dialog with youth photographers Jasmine, 17, Lai Lai, 17 and Yonnie, 19, who themselves are sometimes the subjects, to find voice through the lens of a camera. Often, these youth do not have the historical knowledge, coping skills, or benefits of having open, honest dialogue, and so have found expression in Shooting Without Bullets. The arts-based program, brain-child of artist-activist and youth advocate, Amanda King, assists black and brown teens to process complex social problems experienced by them and provides a radical platform to speak through artistic expression. 

About the Artist

Dawoud Bey (b. 1953, New York, NY) began his career as an artist in 1975 with a series of photographs, “Harlem, USA,” that were later exhibited in his first one-person exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1979. Since that time exhibitions have included a mid-career survey of his work, “Dawoud Bey: Portraits 1975-1995,” and a survey exhibition in 2012 “Dawoud Bey: Picturing People.” Additionally, Bey’s critical writings include High Times Hard Times: New York Painting, 1967- 1975, The Van DerZee Studio, and David Hammons: Been There Done That. In 2018 a major forty-year retrospective monograph, Dawoud Bey: Seeing Deeply, will be published by the University of Texas Press.

This event is free to the public. Seating is limited, reservations are recommended.