Dawoud Bey (Artist | Stephen Daiter Gallery, Rena Bransten Gallery), Leigh Raiford (Associate Professor, Department of African American Studies, University of California, Berkeley), Steven Nelson (Professor, African and African American Art, UCLA Department of Art History). Moderated by Michelle Grabner (Artist | James Cohan, Professor, Painting and Drawing | SAIC, Curator | FRONT International).

Join this discussion on the occasion of the newest commissioned work of 2017 MacArthur Fellow Dawoud Bey, entitled Night Coming Tenderly, Black, on view as part of FRONT International, the Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. Installed in St. John’s Episcopal Church, a stop on the Underground Railroad in the nineteenth century, Bey’s recent series of photographs evoke the imagined experience of escaped slaves—moving northward through Cleveland and the surrounding area to Lake Erie, before boarding boats bound for Canada. Through brooding photographic prints, Bey seeks to reconstruct the experience of moving through a strange city and landscape under cover of night. In conversation with scholars Leigh Raiford and Steven Nelson, and moderated by Curator of FRONT International Michelle Grabner, this discussion expands on the artist’s continued interest in the ways in which history can be engaged, invoked, and materialized in the contemporary moment in relation to African American history and experience.

Presented in partnership with Expo Chicago and Observer. Followed by a book signing.