Dawoud Bey is one of the most renowned photographers in America. He became especially well-known through his large-scale color portraits of adolescents and other often marginalized subjects. A sensational retrospective about his works from the last 40 years will appear in the publishing house University of Texas Press in September. The 400-page illustrated book titled “Seeing Deeply” includes his street photography in Harlem, but also his impressions for the commemoration of the bombing of the church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.
The complex book was produced by the Dr. Cantz’sche Druckerei Medien GmbH in Germany, a company belonging to the Wurzel Mediengruppe. Owner Heinz Wurzel says: “We have already created an illustrated book of the US-street photographer Garry Winogrand for the University of Texas Press. It pleases me all the more, that we have now also received the contract for the illustrated book about Dawoud Bey.”
The illustrated book presents chronologically ordered photographs from all of Bey’s important projects – from his early street-photography in Harlem to his current portraits of the Harlem-gentrification. Viewers experience how the collective body of portraits and newer landscapes create an unprecedented historical portrayal of different communities in the United States. Leading curators, critics and scholars such as Sarah Lewis, Deborah Willis, David Travis, Hilton Als, Jacqueline Terrassa, Rebecca Walker, Maurice Berger and Leigh Raiford introduce each photo sequence.
The implementation of the book project was very extensive. 136 photos from a total of 265 recordings had to be converted from color to black and white, according to the guidelines of the photo artist. “With the help of special color managements, we were successful in expressing the depth and strength of the pictures also in black and white. In doing so, we worked very closely together with the artist, with whom we coordinated each individual proof”, reports Klaus Prokop, sales manager of Dr. Cantz'sche Druckerei Medien GmbH. The result is impressive. Dawoud Bey comments on the book: “I think it is very good and I am extremely impressed. The quality of the print is first-class.”
For 85 years, the Dr. Cantz’sche Druckerei Medien GmbH has been the top address internationally for the production of high-quality catalogues and art books. For example, Cantz printed various exhibition catalogues for the MoMa in New York and San Francisco as well as the Obama-pictorial “The Call of History” for the New York Times. Besides this, the entire catalogue of works from Gerhard Richter is digitized and administered by Cantz.