Since
the mid-1970s, Dawoud Bey has explored African American identity and experience
through sensitively wrought portraits. In 1991, after years of black-and-white
photographs made first with a handheld camera and then with a larger,
tripod-mounted view camera, Bey began using a 20-by-24-inch Polaroid camera.
This behemoth of a device, one of only five in existence, weighed more than 200
pounds and was mounted on wheels to facilitate framing and focusing. Obviously,
it necessitated working in the studio rather than on the urban streets, as had
previously been his custom, and a greater collaboration between the artist and
sitter. His subjects would have to communicate who they were, not through the
environment they were a part of, but solely through their expression, carriage,
and clothing, all of which would be powerfully captured by the large scale,
rich detail, and lush color of the Polaroid prints. Soon, Bey increased the
scale and complexity of his pictures by building each image from a series of
shots that often overlapped, suggesting a multifaceted identity difficult to
pin down.