Dawoud Bey: Class Pictures
"Dawoud Bey's Class Pictures consist of striking, large-scale portraits of students at high schools across the United States. Their strength is borne from formal simplicity in which each sitter returns the gaze with an expression of seriousness." -- Debra Klomp Ching --Photo District News"As for those who make up the genus American teenager, Bey has done them the greatest possible service, taking them seriously without patronizing or promoting them... Photography may conceal truth by framing the world, but it resists falsehood by drawing our attention to the visible. For Bey, that is the medium's saving grace. We create categories, but the camera confounds them." -- Lyle Rexer --Photograph Magazine"The inequity of sadness among Bey's subjects is stark, but his tender portraits afford them all the same dignity. It's striking to see teens portrayed with so little sensation: there isn't a Gossip Girl in the bunch." -- Jennie Yabroff --Newsweek"A new monograph by Columbia College photo teacher Dawoud Bey penetrates the social veneer of American high school students." -- Mary Goodwin --American Photo"Bey's disarming portraits of students and their accompanying autobiographical statements challenge the stereotype of the angst-ridden, self-absorbed youngster--while showing a photographer at his best."  --Chicago Magazine