Luke's Blog

Luke Lombardi Art 170-002  Chicago based photographer Dawoud Bey made his inaugural exhibition at the Sean Kelly gallery. Kelly said in a release, “I have admired Dawoud’s work for many years and we have been friends for a long time. We very much look forward to welcoming him to the gallery and representing his inspiring and important body of work.” In This Here Place is composed of twenty-four black and white photos. All of the works are gelatin silver prints and taken on plantations in Louisiana. He used contrasts of light and shadows. For this work, Bey traveled along the west banks of the Mississippi River. He visited the Evergreen, Laura, Whitney, Oak Alley and Destrehan plantations to photograph the now uninhabited sites where more than a thousand people were enslaved over the years. Bey continues his ongoing investigation of African American history with hopes of making the black past resonant in the modern moment. Since the mid 70s, Dawoud Bey has worked...