Dawoud Bey: Material Histories, Living Landscapes

For practically 5 a long time, American photographer Dawoud Bey has explored Black life by portraiture, panorama, and transferring picture, revealing how historical past continues to form the current. This ongoing exploration continues in his upcoming exhibition, Dawoud Bey: Material Histories, Living Landscapes, opening July 24, 2026, on the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Presented in partnership with the 2026 Toronto Biennial of Art and curated by Allison Glenn, Curator of the 2026 Toronto Biennial of Art, the exhibition brings collectively 23 large-scale works from Bey’s latest sequence, together with Night Coming Tenderly, Black (2016–17), In This Here Place (2019), and Stony the Road (2023), alongside 350,000 (2023),  a two-channel movie from the Rennie Collection reimagining the journey made by enslaved Africans alongside the Richmond Slave Trail. Installed alongside 4 African sculptures from the AGO’s everlasting assortment, this site-specific set up traces the historic connections between North America and Africa, emphasizing how landscapes and waterways reveal the histories which have formed the Black diaspora.

While portraiture has lengthy been central to Bey’s observe, this exhibition continues his more moderen exploration of panorama as a vessel for reminiscence, asking what the land itself can reveal about histories of enslavement, migration, and survival. Throughout his observe, Bey has demonstrated a outstanding skill to {photograph} the presence of what can’t be seen. Rather than illustrating historic occasions straight, he turns to landscapes and the constructed setting, inviting viewers to contemplate the experiences embedded inside them. In doing so, he reveals how the previous stays embedded in modern expertise.

Bey shares, “I hope that viewers will come to a deeper consideration of history, and realize that history does not stay in the past, it very much informs and shapes the present as well.” Dawoud Bey: Material Histories, Living Landscapes carries this sentiment ahead, providing viewers a possibility to replicate on how historical past continues to reside throughout the landscapes we encounter and the tales we inherit, in addition to images’s distinctive skill to make these connections seen.

About Dawoud Bey

Groundbreaking American artist and MacArthur Fellow Dawoud Bey examines the Black previous and current. His images and movie installations have been exhibited extensively in museums and galleries all through the United States and Europe as the topic of quite a few main solo exhibitions and retrospectives. Recent exhibitions embody Elegy on the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (2023–2024) and the New Orleans Museum of Art (2025–2026); Street Portraits on the Denver Art Museum (2024–2025); and An American Project, which was organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art (2020–2022). His upcoming tasks embody an exhibition on the Art Gallery of Ontario (2026) and participation within the Berlin Prize Fellowship (2026) and the Triennial of Photography Hamburg (2026).Elegy (Aperture/VMFA, 2023), a serious publication documenting his panorama retrospective at VMFA; Street Portraits (MACK Books, 2021); and Seeing Deeply (University of Texas Press, 2017), a forty-year retrospective monograph. His crucial writings on modern artwork and images have appeared in a variety of publications.

The recipient of quite a few awards and distinctions, together with 4 honorary doctorates, Bey lives and works in Chicago and New York. He is a Critic and alumnus at Yale University and is Professor Emeritus at Columbia College Chicago. He is represented by Sean Kelly Gallery, New York and Los Angeles; Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago; and Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco.

Instagram: @dawoudbey

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About the Toronto Biennial of Art:

The Toronto Biennial of Art’s mission is to make modern artwork accessible to everybody. A twelve-week occasion each two years, the Biennial commissions artists to create new works for a city-wide exhibition in dialogue with Toronto’s numerous native contexts. Year-round public and studying applications bridge Biennials and invite intergenerational audiences to discover the concepts that encourage our occasions. Building upon previous editions and providing new methods of seeing and listening, every Biennial connects individuals to spark significant dialogues and picture new futures. For extra data, go to torontobiennial.org, and on Instagram and Facebook.

Instagram: @torontobiennial

An architectural landmark, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is without doubt one of the largest artwork museums in North America. The AGO Collection of greater than 120,000 artworks ranges from cutting-edge modern artwork to vital works by Indigenous and Canadian artists and European masterpieces. The AGO presents wide-ranging exhibitions and applications, together with solo exhibitions and acquisitions by numerous and underrepresented artists from around the globe. When it opens in 2027, the Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery will current trendy and modern artwork from Toronto and the world. With its groundbreaking Annual Pass program, the AGO is without doubt one of the most reasonably priced and accessible points of interest within the GTA. Visit in the past.ca to study extra. The AGO is funded partly by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming. Additional working assist is obtained from the City of Toronto, the Canada Council for the Arts, and beneficiant contributions from AGO Members, donors, and private-sector companions.

Instagram: @agotoronto