W.M. Hunt

DAUWOD BEY, “Night Coming Tenderly, Black”

FRONT INTERNATIONAL: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. SUMMER 2018.

“Dream Variations”, Langston Hughes, 1926

To fling my arms wide

In some place of the sun,

To whirl and to dance

Till the white day is done.

Then rest at cool evening

Beneath a tall tree

While night comes on gently,

Dark like me-

That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide

In the face of the sun,

Dance! Whirl! Whirl!

Till the quick day is done.

Rest at pale evening...

A tall, slim tree...

Night coming tenderly

Black like me.

It was genius to commission a special project from Dawoud Bey to debut the first edition of FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art.  “Night Coming Tenderly, Black” references a 1926 Langston Hughes’ poem “Dream Variations”, and it is the artist’s well considered photographic response to the Underground Railroad and Cleveland, which was a final way station.  These are fewer than a dozen landscapes installed, all printed very darkly, in homage to Roy Decarava.  We see flashes of houses, trees, picket fences, and Lake Erie, like escaping slaves desperately catching glimpses of freedom, unknown but hopefully close at hand.  The venue is St. John’s Episcopal Church, historically an end point for the Underground Railroad.  The church is modest and decaying, a unique and perfect setting.  The large framed works are suspended in front of the pews, at a low height, so the viewer must sit and lean forward to see the images, like praying.   The works seem opaque and unyielding until the viewer commits to looking.  Then one can dance and whirl as the poem says.  The experience is haunted and haunting, enlightened and enlightening. 

Thanks and congratulations especially to the artist, here in top form with a major forty-year retrospective publication, Dawoud Bey: Seeing Deeply, coming this fall; and to Fred Bidwell, Executive Director and spiritual father of Front; Michelle Grabner, Artistic Director; and Lisa Kurzner, Curator.  

A dream.