Mesmerizing and evocative, these 42 photographs and two film installations by contemporary American artist Dawoud Bey contemplate the harrowing journeys and human realities of the Virginia slave trail, Louisiana plantations, and Ohio’s Underground Railroad. Dawoud Bey: Elegy premieres a trilogy that includes Bey’s most recent series of never-before-seen photographs taken in Richmond and commissioned by VMFA. Internationally renowned for his Harlem street scenes and expressive portraits, Bey, in these landscapes, meditates on place as profound repository of memory and witness to American history. In this immersive and transportive exhibition, his works poetically imply a human presence, deepening our understanding of African American experiences rarely represented in collective US history.
Organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and curated by Valerie Cassel Oliver, Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Dawoud Bey: Elegy showcases three photographic series. Visitors will first encounter Stony the Road, commissioned by VMFA, which takes viewers to the historic trail in Richmond, Virginia, where Africans arrived in bondage to an unknown land and were walked into enslavement. The photographs in In This Here Place contemplate the plantations of Louisiana and the toils and horrors of enslavement. Photographed in Ohio, Night Coming Tenderly, Black elucidates our understanding of the Underground Railroad and the perilous flight to self-emancipation.
The first film installation, 350,000, evokes the 350,000+ men, women, and children sold from Richmond’s auction blocks at Manchester Docks between 1830 and 1860. The film’s soundtrack features Dr. E. Gaynell Sherrod, VCU professor of dance. Visitors will also experience Evergreen, a three-channel film installation created in collaboration with composer and experimental ethnographer Imani Uzuri, whose multilayered vocal score adds a haunting soundscape.
The Artist: “Dawoud Bey: Elegy”
“The reason that I make the work that I do is to provoke a conversation about the past in the present moment.” Watch artist Dawoud Bey discuss the “enveloping” experience he has created through his photography and film installations on view in VMFA’s immersive exhibition “Dawoud Bey: Elegy.”
Shop Dawoud Bey: Elegy merchandise and more from Dawoud Bey at VMFA Shop.
Exhibition Highlights
Untitled (James River), 2023, Dawoud Bey (American, born 1953), gelatin silver print, 48 x 59 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of Mrs. Alfred duPont, by exchange, 2020.168.9. Image © Dawoud Bey
Untitled #1 (Picket Fence and Farmhouse), 2017, Dawoud Bey (American, born 1953), gelatin silver print, 48 x 59 in. Rennie Collection, Vancouver. Image © Dawoud Bey
Untitled (Trail and Trees), 2023, Dawoud Bey (American, born 1953), gelatin silver print, 48 x 59 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of Mrs. Alfred duPont, by exchange, 2020.168.1. Image © Dawoud Bey
Conjoined Trees and Field, 2019, Dawoud Bey (American, born 1953), gelatin silver print, 48 x 59 in. Rennie Collection, Vancouver. Image © Dawoud Bey
Presented by
Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Exhibition Endowment
William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust
Julia Louise Reynolds Fund
Community Foundation for a greater Richmond
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas F. Garner, Jr.
Dr. and Mrs. William V. Garner
Elisabeth Shelton Gottwald Fund
Nancy and Wayne Chasen
Anne and Gus Edwards
Rennie Collection, Vancouver, Canada
VMFA is also grateful to the following sponsors:
Liz and Bob Blue | Caprice Bragg and Larry Thomas | Kate and Matt Cooper | Dana Foundation, Inc. | Marietta Daniel | Dr. Monroe E. Harris, Jr. and Dr. Jill Bussey Harris | Eucharia “Ukay” and Richard Jackson, M.D. | Tammy and Brian Jackson | Arnel Manalo | Michelle and John Nestler | Irvin and Linda Seeman
This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Irrigation Ditch, 2019, Dawoud Bey (American, born 1953), gelatin silver print, 48 x 59 in. Rennie Collection, Vancouver. Image © Dawoud Bey