Muhammad

Bey's career in photography was inspired by the experience of seeing the controversial exhibition "Harlem on My Mind" at the Met in 1969. It was here that he first encountered the work of James VanDerZee, the photographer of the Harlem Renaissance whose collective portrait of an emerging African-American middle class represents one of the pinnacles of American photography. VanDerZee's model was further recommended by the dearth of positive or even neutral images of black culture in the 1960s and 1970s except the stock stereotypes seen in advertising, television, and movies. Bey often photographs African American teenagers, a group historically excluded from the genre of portraiture, and often represented in very negative ways in the media. The artist says, “I wanted the subjects…to be possessed of the power to look, to assert oneself, to meet the gaze of the viewer. Having had so much taken from them, I want my subjects to reclaim their right to look, to see, and to be seen.”