Kasseem Dean shares his Gordon Parks collection at Harvard
Kasseem Dean, known in the music world as Swizz Beatz, was used to seeing Gordon Parks’ photographs in meetings with business partners and at the homes of friends who were not African American. It was far more unusual to see the artwork in front of the people Parks represented. “Instead of overthinking it, I thought I could be a part of the change to start supporting our own,” said the rapper and record producer, who over several years acquired the largest private collection of Parks’ works. “We have a hard time supporting our own sometimes because it’s so close to us. We run from it when we should run to it.” Dean brought 80 pieces to the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Art, where “Gordon Parks: Selections from the Dean Collection” opened two weeks ago. The exhibition, which is free and open to the public,...