A Young Man Resting on an Exercise Bike, Amityville, Long Island

1990

A Young Man Resting on an Exercise Bike, Amityville, Long Island, 1990. Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953). Gelatin silver print from Type 55 Polaroid film; image: 42.9 x 55.9 cm (16 7/8 x 22 in.); paper: 50.4 x 60.6 cm (19 13/16 x 23 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Carl and Joan Schneider 2018.309 Dawoud Bey made this photograph using Polaroid Type 55 film, a black-and-white, peel-apart film which yields both a positive print and a negative image. You can see the vertical line that resulted from peeling the layers along the right edge. Bey gave the instant print to the sitter and used the negative to make luscious, enlarged, gelatin silver prints. Amityville, the setting for the novel The Amityville Horror and films based on it, has under 10,000 inhabitants.