Kickback - The Whitney Museum: Summer 2021

Dawoud Bey: An American Project

"Spanning from his earliest street portraits in Harlem to his most recent series imagining an escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad, Dawoud Bey: An American Project attests to the artist’s profound engagement with the Black subject. He is deeply committed to the craft of photography, drawing on the medium's specific tools, processes, and materials to amplify the formal, aesthetic, and conceptual goals of each body of work. Bey views photography not only as a form of personal expression but as an act of political responsibility, emphasizing the necessary and ongoing work of artists and institutions to break down obstacles to access, convene communities, and open dialogues."

- The Whitney

Dawoud Bey: An American Project

From left to right: Fresh Coons and Wild Rabbits, Harlem, NY, 1975; A Boy in Front of the Loew’s 125th Street Movie Theater, Harlem, NY, 1976; A Woman and a Child in the Doorway, Harlem, NY, 1975

Clockwise, from top left: Four Children at Lenox Avenue, Harlem, NY, 1977; A Woman and Two Boys Passing, Harlem, NY, 1978; Deas McNeil, the Barber, Harlem, NY, 1976; A Woman Waiting in the Doorway, Harlem, NY, 1976; Two Girls at Lady D’s, Harlem, NY, c. 1976; A Young Boy from a Marching Band, Harlem, NY, 1977; Three Women at a Parade, Harlem, NY, 1978; A Man in a Bowler Hat, Harlem, NY, 1976. Photograph by Ron Amstutz

Clockwise, from top left: Two Boys, Syracuse, NY, 1985; A Young Man with a Bus Transfer, Syracuse, NY, 1985; Two Boys at a Syracuse Handball Court, Syracuse, NY, 1985; Car in Backyard, Syracuse, NY, 1985; A Young Woman Waiting for the Bus, Syracuse, NY, 1985; A Young Man at the Bus Stop, Syracuse, NY, 1985; Four Teenagers After Church Service, Syracuse, NY, 1985; Combing Hair, Syracuse, NY, 1986; Clothes Drying on the Line, Syracuse, NY, 1985; A Woman and Three Children, Syracuse, NY, 1985. Photograph by Ron Amstutz

Martina and Rhonda, Chicago, IL, 1993

A Man at Fulton Street and Cambridge Place, Brooklyn, NY, 1988; A Young Man Resting on an Exercise Bike, Amityville, NY, 1988

A Girl with School Medals, Brooklyn, NY, 1988; A Boy Eating a Foxy Pop, Brooklyn, NY, 1988; A Girl with a Knife Nosepin, Brooklyn, NY, 1990; A Couple in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY, 1990

Kenosha II, 1996

A Girl with School Medals, Brooklyn, NY, 1988.

Lorna, New York, NY, 1992.

Night Coming Tenderly, Black

The Birmingham Project: Betty Selvage and Faith Speights, 2012

The Birmingham Project:

The Whitney’s Collection: Selections From 1900 to 1965

"The exhibition begins with a gallery devoted to selections from the Museum’s founding collection, followed by galleries that weave their way through major art historical movements and genres. Key achievements by individual figures, including Georgia O’Keeffe and Jacob Lawrence, are interspersed throughout the show. Icons of the collection such as Calder’s Circus and the work of Edward Hopper are featured as well as more recent acquisitions—in particular, Norman Lewis’s American Totem (1960), a painting made at the height of the civil rights movement by an under-appreciated protagonist in the story of Abstract Expressionism. Such additions demonstrate that the Whitney’s collection is a dynamic cultural resource that allows us to continually reframe the history of American life and artistic production." - The Whitney

left to right, top to bottom: Madeline Shiff, Wiltz at Work, 1932; Anne Goldthwaite, Rebecca, c. 1925; George Bellows, Dempsey and Firpo, 1924; Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Landscape, 1924; Katherine Schmidt, The Snake, 1932; Oscar Bluemner, Last Evening of the Year, c. 1929; Stuart Davis, Early American Landscape, 1925

left to right, top to bottom: John Steuart Curry, Baptism in Kansas, 1928; John D. Graham, Head of a Woman, 1926; Thomas Hart Benton, The Lord is my Shepherd, 1926; Rockwell Kent, The Trapper, 1921; George C. Ault, Hudson Street, 1932; Charles Burchfield, Winter Twilight, 1930.

Joseph Stella, The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme, 1939

Georgia O'Keeffe, It Was Blue and Green, 1960

Georgia O’Keeffe, Flower Abstraction, 1924

Georgia O’Keeffe, Music, Pink and Blue No. 2, 1918

Georgia O’Keeffe, Summer Days, 1936

Edward Hopper, Soir Bleu, 1914

George Tooker, The Subway, 1950

Robert Vickrey, The Labyrinth, 1951

Paul Cadmus, Sailors and Floosies, 1938

Archibald John Motley, Jr., Gettin’ Religion, 1948

Henry Koerner, Mirror of Life, 1946

ay DeFeo, The Rose, 1958-66

Norman Lewis, American Totem, 1960

Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019

"Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019 foregrounds how visual artists have explored the materials, methods, and strategies of craft over the past seven decades. Some expand techniques with long histories, such as weaving, sewing, or pottery, while others experiment with textiles, thread, clay, beads, and glass, among other mediums. The traces of the artists’ hands-on engagement with their materials invite viewers to imagine how it might feel to make each work.

"While artists’ reasons for taking up craft range widely, many aim to subvert prevalent standards of so-called “fine art,” often in direct response to the politics of their time. In challenging accepted ideas of taste—whether by embracing the decorative or turning away from traditional painting and sculpture in favor of functional items like bowls or blankets—these artists reclaim visual languages that have typically been coded as feminine, domestic, or vernacular. By highlighting marginalized modes of artistic production, these artists challenge the power structures that determine artistic value." - The Whitney