Untitled #25 (Lake Erie and Sky) 2017

Dawoud Bey made this gelatin silver print of Lake Erie and Sky without a date. It's a study in the color black, and all the near-blacks, grays, and whites that hover around it. The photograph is mostly a dark expanse with barely-there details in the water, and subtle suggestions of clouds overhead. Bey uses tone and texture to suggest light playing across the surface of the water. The image is very contrasty, and it feels like there is a lot of atmosphere packed into the almost-monochrome. This feeling is heightened by the composition of the image which is split into two horizontal bands of dark water and dark sky. I am reminded of Vija Celmins’s drawings of the night sky. Both Bey and Celmins share an interest in the almost-nothingness of things. They both invite us to really look hard at what we think we already know. It's like they're saying, "Hey, have you ever really *seen* the color black? Or the night sky?"