Untitled #14 (Site of John Brown's Tannery) 2017

This gelatin silver print was made by Dawoud Bey. It's an image made through light and chemistry. The deep blacks and subtle greys aren't just capturing a scene; they're building an atmosphere, heavy with the weight of history. Bey’s tonal range is amazing. He coaxes so many shades out of the darkness. Look at the way the branches reach across the sky. It reminds me of Kline's big swooping gestures, but Bey uses light instead of paint. You can almost feel the cold, damp air and the quiet tension of a place marked by radical history. It's like looking at a Rothko, but instead of color, it's all about the emotional resonance of tone. Bey is making pictures about history. Just like painters like Richter use the canvas to explore memory, Bey uses photography to ask us to look closely at the spaces where history happened.