Often, what we see in front of us is preconceived. Representations of the other or others are reduced to a few simple and reductive formulas. Common sense attributes physical and behavioural characteristics that are perpetuated unchallenged. Societies and individuals rely on stereotypes to diminish reality. Bayeté Ross Smith, an African-American artist, bases his work on the strength and constancy of prejudice: on what could be called the pre-viewed. In his staged photographs, characters are given different personalities depending on their attitude, their appearance and occasionally their words. It becomes difficult to know what the true “nature” of these individuals really is. Society, in particular American society, has a tendency to essentialise, in other words to reduce people to a trait considered significant. By generalising, we distort and thereby turn characterisation into the definition of our own identity by distancing others from ourselves.

“Bayeté Ross Smith: Beyond Appearances” is the second part of an African-American trilogy. It follows the exhibition “Stephen Shames: Comrade Sisters / Women of the Black Panther Party” and will be followed in the summer of 2025 by “Kwame Brathwaite: Black is Beautiful”.

The exhibition “Bayeté Ross Smith: Beyond Appearances” is part of the PhotoSaintGermain
festival program in partnership with the Musée national Eugène-Delacroix.
“Our Kind of People : Bayeté Ross Smith”, 31.10.2024 – 3.02.2025, Musée national Eugène-Delacroix.

Biography

Bayeté Ross Smith is a multidisciplinary artist, photographer, visual journalist, and filmmaker working at the intersection of photography, film, video, visual journalism, 3D objects, and new media. He is Columbia University Law School Artist-in-Residence, a TED speaker, a Clinton Foundation and George W. Bush Presidential Leadership Scholar, a Creative Capital Awardee, a CatchLight Global Fellow, as well as a New York Times embedded mediamaker.
His artistic practice encourages people to question their preexisting beliefs by inviting them to examine how cultural perspectives and biases influence how we perceive stories and, in turn, the concept of truth. Drawing on the concepts of identity and community, Bayeté Ross Smith studies and deconstructs ideas of beauty, value, and reciprocity. Identity is both a performance and a set of characteristics in service to controlled images and media that define individuals and cultures globally.
The Mougins Center of Photography is dedicating its first solo exhibition in France and Europe to him. His work has been presented at the Lincoln Center (New York), the Sheffield DocFest, and the LA Film Festival. His collaborative projects have been showcased at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008 and 2012, and his works are part of the collections of The Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, the Oakland Museum of California, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and The Brooklyn Museum (New York). Additionally, he has created public art projects with Fondation Carmignac, CatchLight and Dysturb, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, the City of White Plains NY, The Lenfest Center for the Arts at Columbia University, the Northeast Sculpture Social Justice Billboard Project, the NYC Parks Department, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, the Jerome Foundation, and the Hartford YMCA.

© Bayeté Ross Smith
Mirrors Study 3: Rixy, 2010
Digigraphie on Hahnemühle, Photo Rag Baryta

©  Bayeté Ross Smith
Who Is a Threat? Who Is a Victim? 2020