Michael-Anthony Allen and George Washington 2012

Dawoud Bey made this striking diptych of black and white photographs, titled 'Michael-Anthony Allen and George Washington,' without specifying a date, but its power feels timeless. It’s a double portrait, a kind of call and response between two faces, two lives. The surfaces here are all about light and shadow. Look at the way the light falls on Michael-Anthony's face, smooth and almost sculptural, then shift your gaze to George Washington's, etched with the map of lived experience. Bey’s use of black and white strips away distractions, focusing on the texture of skin, the set of the jaw, the stories etched into each face by time. There’s an undeniable echo of August Sander in Bey’s work, that same desire to capture the breadth of human experience through portraiture. But where Sander aimed for a kind of sociological catalog, Bey feels more intimate, more attuned to the individual soul. It’s a conversation, a connection, a moment held in time, inviting us to look, to listen, and to feel.