Dawoud Bey’s “Class Pictures” exhibit isn’t the kind of show that brings to mind amusement park metaphors, but I’ve been on a bit of a roller coaster ride after seeing it a few times. At first, it struck me on a con
ceptual note. Bey’s camera tells a story, a history. But the text beside the large-format photographs tells one, too. Are they the same? Different? Complementary? Contradictory? Capturing people at the time in which self-presentation is everything, Bey sets two self-portraits against each other. Charles may tell us “There are a lot of things I don’t do or say.” But his forward-leaning, in-your-face, clear-eyed stare speaks volumes.
These aren’t self-portraits, of course. But it’s clear that Bey wants to give his subjects the 
power of self-definition in his pictures. On another visit to the show, I focused on the dance-like expressions of the subject’s postures. And I wondered about the conversation and negotiation during the shoot. They have the studied quality of classical portraiture. It’s hard to imagine the posed contortions as casual and natural. Some are the kind of poses you’d see in a classroom, perhaps, as a teacher 
droned on into the second half-hour of an algebra class, trying once again to explain the Pythagorean theorem. Others resonate with a confident, confrontational glare. But they all suggest a studied collaboration between subject and artist, a sharing of power that spans the gap inherent in the creative process.
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