Around Atlanta

High Museum is Exclusive Southeast Venue for Dawoud Bey Photography Retrospective

Published

4 years ago

October 27, 2020

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

A Man in a Bowler Hat, Harlem, NY, 1976- Dawoud Bey

For more than four decades, renowned photographer Dawoud Bey has created powerful and tender photographs that portray underrepresented communities and explore African American history. From portraits in Harlem and classic street photography to nocturnal landscapes and large-scale studio portraits, his works combine an ethical imperative with an unparalleled mastery of his medium. Coming this fall, the High Museum of Art will celebrate his important contributions to photography as the exclusive Southeast venue for “Dawoud Bey: An American Project” (Dec. 12, 2020-March 14, 2021), the artist’s first full career retrospective in 25 years.

Co-organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the exhibition will feature approximately 80 works that span the breadth of Bey’s career, from his earliest street portraits made in Harlem in the 1970s to his most recent series reimagining sites of the Underground Railroad (2017).

The High has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with Bey, who was commissioned in 1996 for the Museum’s inaugural “Picturing the South” series, which asks noted photographers to turn their lens toward the American South. For his project, Bey collaborated with Atlanta high school students to create empathetic, larger-than-life portraits. Made with the monumental 20-by-24-inch Polaroid camera, these photographs explore the complexity of adolescence as a time of critical identity formation and expand the concept of portraiture. The High now holds more than 50 photographs by Bey, one of the most significant museum collections of his work.

“Bey’s portraits are remarkable for their keen sensitivity and for how they elicit and honor their subjects’ sense of self, which is partly an outcome of the artist’s collaborative practice,” remarked Sarah Kennel, the High’s Donald and Marilyn Keough Family curator of photography. “Given the museum’s long relationship with Bey and the strength of our holdings, we are thrilled to present this important retrospective. We look forward to sharing the artist’s photographs and his powerful and moving reflections on African American history and identity in their country with our visitors.”

Bey, born in 1953 in Queens, New York, began to develop an interest in photography as a teenager. He received his first camera as a gift from his godmother in 1968, and the next year, he saw the exhibition “Harlem on My Mind” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Widely criticized for its failure to include significant numbers of artworks by African Americans, the exhibition’s representation of Black subjects nonetheless made an impression on Bey and inspired him to develop his own documentary project about Harlem in 1975. Since that time, he has worked primarily in portraiture, making tender, psychologically rich and direct portrayals, often in collaboration with his subjects. More recently, he has explored seminal moments in African American history through both portraiture and landscape.

“Dawoud Bey: An American Project” will include work from the artist’s eight major series and is organized to reflect the development of Bey’s vision throughout his career and to highlight his enduring engagement with portraiture, place and history.

The Street

Bey’s landmark black-and-white 1975-78 series “Harlem, USA” documents portraits and street scenes with locals of the historic neighborhood in New York. As a young man growing up in Queens, Bey was intrigued by his family’s history in Harlem, where his parents met and where he visited family and friends throughout childhood. The series premiered at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1979, when Bey was just 26.

In addition to works from that series, the exhibition will include a remarkable series of street photographs Bey made in Syracuse, New York, that demonstrate his keen eye for portraiture and his ability to respond with both spontaneity and sensitivity to his subjects and their environment. These works are accompanied by more formal street portraits that Bey created in the 1980s in areas such as Brooklyn, New York, and Washington, D.C. Made with a large-format camera and Polaroid film, these photographs reflect a more intimate and enduring exchange between Bey and his subjects, and by extension, the viewer.

The exhibition will also feature the series “Harlem Redux,” which marks Bey’s return to the area from 2014 to 2017. This newer series of large-format color landscapes and streetscapes at once documents and mourns the transformation of the community as it has become more gentrified and its original residents increasingly displaced.

The Studio

After honing his skills in street photography, Bey moved toward studio work in the 1990s, using a massive 20-by-24-inch Polaroid camera to make a series of sensitive and direct color portraits, first of friends and later of teenagers he met through a 1992 residency at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts. At the time, Bey also began to experiment with beautifully lit multipanel Polaroid portraits that challenge the singularity of the photographic print and suggest the complexity of identity.

In 2002, a residency at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art inspired Bey to begin the series “Class Pictures.” Using a view camera to create striking, large-scale color portraits of high school students, Bey asked the students to write narratives to accompany the photographs. Over the next four years, Bey continued work on the series at high schools across the United States. By focusing on teenagers from a wide range of economic, social and ethnic backgrounds and giving them an opportunity to reveal their thoughts, fears and dreams at a critical moment of identity formation, Bey created a diverse group of thoughtful and introspective portraits that challenge stereotypes of adolescence.

History

The exhibition closes with works from two of Bey’s most recent series exploring African American history and collective memory.

“The Birmingham Project,” created in 2012 as a commission from the Birmingham Museum of Art, memorializes the victims of the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and its violent aftermath. The series features expressive portraits of children who are the same age as the bombing victims paired with photographs of adults who are the ages those children would have been in 2012 had they lived. The photographs, along with an accompanying video piece, are stirring reminders of the precious lives lost and foreground the enduring legacy of racism and violence against African Americans.

In 2017, Bey completed “Night Coming Tenderly, Black,” a series of beautifully rendered and evocative images made in Ohio where the Underground Railroad once operated. As landscapes, the large black-and-white photographs mark a departure from the artist’s previous work, but they emphasize many of the same existential questions. The series, whose title is drawn from a Langston Hughes poem, conjures the spatial and sensory experience of an enslaved person’s escape to liberation as imagined by the artist. Shot by day but printed in deep shades of black and gray as if they were taken at night, these evocative and mysterious works explore blackness as both color and metaphor for race.

“Dawoud Bey: An American Project” will be presented in the High’s Wieland Pavilion Lower Level.

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Around Atlanta

Mike Schleifer to Leave Alliance for Lincoln Center Theater

Published

5 days ago

March 26, 2025

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

A middle-aged man wearing a dark suit jacket, white shirt and grey and blue tie. He's smiling and looking at the camera in front of a dark grey background

After leading Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre through two major renovation projects, a global pandemic and more than 100 productions over 11 years, Managing Director, Mike Schleifer, will leave the Alliance at the end of the year to become the managing director of Lincoln Center Theater in New York.

As managing director of the Alliance, Schleifer oversees all operational, marketing, financial, fundraising and shared services activities. In his new role, Schleifer will oversee LCT’s financial and operational health and ensure long-term sustainability and growth. He will also work to align strategic planning with artistic goals, manage the theater’s union relationships, lead budgeting, marketing and capital planning efforts and identify and develop new revenue opportunities.

“While it’s rare to find a managing director who is equally brilliant at the operational and financial part of the job, it’s simply unheard of to find one who excels on those fronts and leads with such unabashed heart, vision and humor,” said Jennings Hertz Artistic Directors Tinashe Kajese-Bolden and Christopher Moses in a joint statement.

“For the past 11 years, we had the unfathomably good fortune to have all that and more in Mike Schleifer. Mike’s willingness to bet on our mission and invest in the extraordinary talent of the Alliance staff allowed us to realize aspirational dreams we never would have dared to dream without his encouragement and faith. We’ll miss him daily but cannot wait to witness the joy he’ll bring to the Lincoln Center Theater.”

During his tenure

During his tenure with the Alliance, Schleifer led the administrative and producing teams on over 100 productions and moved four shows to Broadway, including last season’s “Water for Elephants” and this season’s “Maybe Happy Ending.”

He spearheaded the $36 million renovation of the award-winning Coca-Cola Stage and is currently leading the $26 million renovation of the Goizueta Stage for Youth and Families. Under his leadership, the Alliance more than doubled its operating budget, tripled its endowment and continued to lead the country in work developed for young audiences.

“It’s been a true honor and privilege to work, lead and learn at the Alliance Theatre for the last eleven years,” said Schleifer. “I’m deeply grateful to the staff, artists and audiences of the Alliance Theatre and Woodruff Arts Center who have made this journey so rewarding.”

“We’ve achieved remarkable milestones — from moving productions to Broadway to completing transformative capital projects,” he continued. “I’m excited for what’s next, but I won’t be leaving until we cut the ribbon on the new Goizueta Stage for Youth and Families — a project that reflects the Alliance’s deep commitment to the next generation of theatergoers, both with the physical theater space and with the endowment we’re raising to make the work on that stage financially accessible for all.”

Additional roles

In addition to his work at the Alliance, Schleifer serves on the boards of the League of Resident Theatres and True Colors Theatre Company. In 2018 he co-founded Volute Partners, a theatre consultancy focused on capital projects and the subsequent operational support and budgets needed to sustain them.

“We are immensely grateful for Mike’s leadership and tireless dedication to the Alliance Theatre. His vision, passion, and expertise have left an indelible mark on this organization,” said Hala Moddelmog, president and CEO of Woodruff Arts Center.

“We take great pride in seeing him step into this well-deserved opportunity, knowing he will make a lasting impact at Lincoln Center Theater.”

New leadership

The leadership of the Woodruff Arts Center, with support from members of the Alliance Theatre Board of Directors, will conduct a national search for the Alliance’s next managing director, led by executive search firm, Corps Team.

“On behalf of the Alliance’s board of directors, we want to thank Mike for more than a decade of service to the Alliance and Atlanta community,” said Kendrick Smith, Alliance Theatre Board of Directors chair. “He oversaw a period of unprecedented growth with a spirit of collaboration and unwavering commitment to the theater’s artistic vision.”

“As we begin the national search for his successor, we remain dedicated to the theater’s mission of expanding hearts and minds, on stage and off.”

About the Alliance Theatre

Founded in 1968, Alliance Theatre is the leading producing theater in the Southeast, reaching more than 165,000 patrons annually.

The Alliance is led by Jennings Hertz Artistic Directors Tinashe Kajese-Bolden and Christopher Moses and Managing Director Mike Schleifer and is a recipient of the Regional Theatre Tony Award® for sustained excellence in programming, education and community engagement.

In January 2019, the Alliance opened its new, state-of-the-art performance space, The Coca-Cola Stage at Alliance Theatre.

Known for its high artistic standards and national role in creating significant theatrical works, the Alliance has premiered more than 140 productions, including eleven that have transferred to Broadway.

Additionally, the Alliance education department reaches more than 90,000 students annually through performances, classes, camps and in-school initiatives designed to support teachers and enhance student learning.

The Alliance Theatre values community, curiosity, collaboration and excellence and is dedicated to representing Atlanta’s diverse community with the stories they tell, the artists, staff and leadership they employ and the audiences they serve.

For more information, visit alliancetheatre.org.

Around Atlanta

Fantastical Creatures in Fernbank’s WildWoods

Published

4 weeks ago

March 5, 2025

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

Fernbank Spirit Guides exhibit promotion with colorful wooden animal sculpture in a grassy area with lots of trees and bushes.

Encounter mythical creatures in a natural landscape when “Spirit Guides: Fantastical Creatures from the Workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles” opens March 29.

Immerse yourself in a breathtaking outdoor exhibit that intertwines Mexican cultures and contemporary art when “Spirit Guides: Fantastical Creatures from the Workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles” opens at Fernbank Museum.

From March 29 to August 3, guests can enter a supernatural world as they walk alongside towering, brightly colored and richly patterned sculptures in the natural landscape of Fernbank’s WildWoods.

Presented in both English and Spanish, this collection of brightly-colored fiberglass sculptures depicts imaginary hybrid animals and offers visitors an unparalleled journey into an imaginative take on the spiritual landscape of southern Mexico’s Indigenous traditions.

Inspiration and legend

In creating “Spirit Guides,” artists Jacobo and María Ángeles were inspired by an ancient Zapotec stone calendar. Indigenous to southern Mexico, Zapotec culture is deeply connected to plants, seasons and animals.

Large colorful sculpture of a winged mythical creature on an open patio in a wooded garden. — photo credit: Scott Dressel-Martin

“Spirit Guides” beckons visitors to travel into the spiritual landscape of Mexico’s Indigenous traditions through these animal sculptures that act as both spirit guides and astrological embodiments of human character.

Some of the hybrid animals depicted include a combination of a deer-butterfly or a coyote-fish. These larger-than-life sculptures depict patterns and designs that symbolize different aspects of Zapotec life and culture, such as happiness, fertility and community.

The artists have previously stated that, according to a Zapotec legend, when you are born an animal comes to you to serve as your protector in this world. This animal is your tona, a being that shares your destiny and soul.

Large colorful sculpture of a howling fish-wolf mythical creature in a wooded garden. — photo credit: Scott Dressel-Martin

Along with your tona, you also have a nahual, which is assigned based on the year of your birth. This spirit animal embodies characteristics that mirror your own personality.

As guests stand before the sculptures in WildWoods — some of which stand nearly 8 feet tall and 9 feet wide — they are made conscious of the profound connection between the natural and cosmological worlds.

About the Artists

Jacobo and María Ángeles are a married artist team based in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Joyful, fanciful and distinctively patterned, the Ángeles’ animal sculptures embrace both contemporary art and folk-art traditions. They employ and teach more than 100 artisans in their workshop, which has created artworks shown in museums around the world.

Exhibit details

By drawing inspiration from the Zapotec calendar and their own imaginations, the Ángeles team sculpted their own mythical creations.

This exhibit features eight towering, vibrant fiberglass sculptures of hybrid animals, intersecting art, mythology and identity. The sculptures were designed through a multi-step process that included conceptual sketches, small wooden renderings and papier mâché molds before casting the fiberglass.

A team of artisans then helped to paint the sculptures with striking colors and intricate geometric patterns inspired by Zapotec and other Indigenous designs, each with their own unique meaning.

Organized by Denver Botanic Gardens, “Spirit Guides: Fantastical Creatures from the Workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles” is on view from March 29 – August 3, 2025. The exhibit is included with General Admission at Fernbank Museum and is free with CityPASS.

It will also be on view select nights when the museum is open, including during Fernbank After Dark and Fernbank … but Later.

For more information, please visit fernbankmuseum.org.

Around Atlanta

Fernbank Museum Roars with Excitement for New Exhibit

Published

2 months ago

January 21, 2025

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

Dinosaur skeleton on display at a natural history museum

“Ultimate Dinosaurs” will run from February 8–May 4, 2025

“Ultimate Dinosaurs,” a special exhibit that explores the fascinating species that evolved in isolation in South America, Africa and Madagascar, stomps into Fernbank Museum from February 8 to May 4.

Through the exhibit, guests will experience an impressive blend of skeletal displays and augmented reality as they learn about the changing prehistoric landscape of dinosaurs in a new, modernized way.

Journey through the Mesozoic

Based on groundbreaking research from scientists around the world, “Ultimate Dinosaurs” highlights dinosaurs typically unfamiliar to North Americans and seeks to answer the question: why are the unique and bizarre dinosaurs in the Southern Hemisphere so different from their North American counterparts?

Dinosaur skeletons on display at an exhibit at a natural history museum — photo credit: Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Starting with the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea, “Ultimate Dinosaurs” takes visitors on a journey through the Mesozoic Era (250-65 million years ago) and shows how continental drift affected the evolution of dinosaurs during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

“We are excited to have “Ultimate Dinosaurs” here at Fernbank and explore the unique ways that dinosaurs have evolved in isolation,” said program manager, Maria Moreno. “This exhibit combines rarely seen specimens with interactive stations for patrons of all ages to enjoy.”

“It is also very exciting to have an exhibit highlighting our mascot, the Giganotosaurus, one of the largest land predators to have ever lived,” Moreno added.

Dino displays and hands-on activities

Guests can view a variety of full-scale dinosaur displays from the Eoraptor, Malawisaurus, Suchomimus, Rapetosaurus and more, including 14 dinosaur skeletons. One highlight is the Giganotosaurus skeleton, which is also on view in Fernbank’s permanent exhibit, “Giants of the Mesozoic.”

An older couple reading information in front of a dinosaur bone display at a natural history museum exhibit — photo credit: Denver Museum of Nature & Science

This special exhibit will include several real fossils, some of which will be available to visitors to touch. Additionally, “Ultimate Dinosaurs” features several hands-on activities, one of which involves exploring the physical characteristics of dinosaurs’ stride patterns, crests and frills.

Another activity uses augmented reality to transform intricately detailed skeletons into moving, flesh-and-bone creatures.

To celebrate the grand opening of “Ultimate Dinosaurs,” Fernbank is hosting a family-friendly Dino Day on Saturday, February 8 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The event is included with general admission.

Additionally, the giant screen film, “T. REX 3D,” will be showing through May 16.

Two smiling, young boys holding toy dinosaurs at a dinosaur exhibit at a natural history museum — photo credit: Denver Museum of Nature & Science

There will also be a lecture with Anthony (Tony) Martin, professor of practice in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Emory University, titled “On Frozen Ground Down Under: Polar Dinosaurs, Insects and other Cretaceous Fossils of Australia” this spring.

The details

Presented by the Science Museum of Minnesota, “Ultimate Dinosaurs” is open at Fernbank from February 8–May 4. The exhibit will be included with general admission tickets and is free with CityPASS.

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit fernbankmuseum.org.