Bayete Ross Smith

Bayeté Ross Smith is an artist, photographer, and educator living in New York City. He is represented by beta pictoris gallery/Maus Contemporary.

He began his career as a photojournalist with the Knight Ridder Newspaper Corporation. Bayeté has exhibited widely with such institutions as the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Brooklyn Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, TEDx MidAtlantic, Duetsche Bank, Rush Arts Gallery, the Leica Gallery, the Utah MOCA, BRIC Arts Media House, the Patricia Sweetow Gallery, the Goethe Institute (Ghana), and Zacheta National Gallery of Art (Poland). His collaborative projects "Along The Way" and "Question Bridge: Black Males" have shown at the 2008 and 2012 Sundance Film Festival, respectively. His work has also been featured at the Sheffield Doc Fest in Sheffield, England, the Unseen Photo Fair in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and the L.A. Film Festival.

He has also been involved in a variety of community and public art projects with organizations such as the Jerome Foundation, BRIC Arts Media, The Laundromat Project, Alternate Roots, the city of San Francisco, the Hartford YMCA and the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency.

Bayeté’s accolades include a FSP/Jerome Fellowship, Harbers Storytelling Project tnp5 Fellowship, as well as fellowships and residencies with the McColl Center for Visual Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, the Kala Institute, Berkeley, California, the Laundromat Project, New York, NY. and SoEx Mission Voices Program. 

His work has been published in numerous books and magazines, including Question Bridge: Black Males in America (2015), Dis:Integration: The Splintering of Black America (2010), Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present (2009), Black: A Celebration of A Culture (2005), The Spirit Of Family (2002); SPE Exposure: The Society of Photographic Education Journal, Black Enterprise Magazine, and Working Mother Magazine.

Bayeté is a member of TED Residency class three and an inaugural POV NY Times embedded media maker collaborating with both institutions while embedded at The NY Times. He has exhibited internationally with the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Brooklyn Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, TEDx MidAtlantic, Duetsche Bank, Rush Arts Gallery, the Utah MOCA, BRIC Arts Gallery, the Phillips Collection, the Missouri History Museum, Jack Shainman Gallery, the Goethe Institute (Ghana), Foto Museum (The Netherlands), and Zacheta National Gallery of Art (Poland), among others. His collaborative projects "Along The Way" and "Question Bridge: Black Males" have shown at the 2008 and 2012 Sundance Film Festival, respectively. His work has also been featured at the Sheffield Doc Fest in Sheffield England and the L.A. Film Festival. Question Bridge: Black males is part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian NMAAHC.

Bayeté's accolades include an International Center of Photography Infinity Award for New Media, a Harbers Storytelling Project tnp5 Fellowship, a FSP/Jerome Fellowship, fellowships and residencies at the McColl Center for Art and Innovation, the Kala Institute, the Laundromat Project, and the SoEx Mission Voices Program. He has also been involved in a variety of community and public art projects with organizations such as the Jerome Foundation, BRIC Arts Media, The Amistad Center, The Laundromat Project, the NYC Parks Department, the Hartford YMCA and the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency. His work has been published in numerous books and magazines, including Question Bridge: Black males in America (2015), Dis:Integration: The Splintering of Black America (2010), Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present (2009), Black: A Celebration of A Culture (2005), The Spirit Of Family (2002); SPE Exposure: The Society of Photographic Education Journal, Black Enterprise Magazine, and Working Mother Magazine.

In addition to his fine art practice Bayeté is currently the Associate Program Director for the Kings against Violence Initiative (KAVI), a hospital and school based violence prevention non-profit organization in New York that partners with Kings County Hospital.