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Image

Dawoud Bey

Mathes Manafee and Cassandra Griffin

Description

Maker

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)

Title

Mathes Manafee and Cassandra Griffin
from the portfolio Birmingham: Four Girls, Two Boys

Year

2014

Medium

  • gelatin silver print

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • gelatin silver print

Dimensions

Sheet: 50.8 x 76.2 cm (20 x 30 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Inscribed and signed, in pencil, on verso, at LR: 17/20 DB

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Helen M. Danforth Acquisition Fund

Object Number

2017.11.1

Type

  • Photographs

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

The Phantom of Liberty
Contemporary Works in the RISD Museum Collection
May 04, 2018 – Dec 30, 2018

Label copy

September 15, 1963. On this day, in Birmingham. Alabama, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church killed four young African-American girls: Addie Mae Collins, aged fourteen, Denise McNair, aged eleven, Carole Robertson, aged fourteen, and Cynthia Wesley, aged fourteen. Several hours later, two young African-American boys: Johnny Robinson, aged sixteen, and Virgil Ware, aged thirteen, were shot and killed in related violent incidents.

The portraits were made in Birmingham over five months in two locations: the original sanctuary of Bethel Baptist Church and the Birmingham Museum of Art. During the Civil Rights era, Bethel Baptist Church was the heart of The Movement. . . . My second location, the Birmingham Museum of Art, founded in 1951, was for many years a segregated public institution, allowing black visitors only one day a week, on Negro Day. I wanted to use both the communal space of the black church and the public galleries of the formerly segregationist museum as the social and historical context in which to make these photographs. -Dawoud Bey

Curator’s note: Bey took these images in 2014. Each pair of photos includes a portrait of a child who was the same age as one of the 1963 bombing victims, coupled with a portrait of an adult who was the age that child would have been in 2014, had they not been killed.

Related Objects

Related Objects

No Image Available

Dawoud Bey

Birmingham: Four Girls Two Boys

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Tombstone

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Mathes Manafee and Cassandra Griffin; from the portfolio Birmingham: Four Girls, Two Boys, 2014
Gelatin silver print
Sheet: 50.8 x 76.2 cm (20 x 30 inches)
Helen M. Danforth Acquisition Fund 2017.11.1

To request new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

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We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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