David A. Bailey

David A. Bailey (born 1961), is a British Afro-Caribbean curator, photographer, writer and cultural facilitator, living and working in London. Among his main concerns are the notions of diaspora and black representation in art.

Biography Bailey was born in London in 1961. He became active in the Black British arts scene in the 1980s. A member of the D-Max photography group, he designed the catalogue for their 1987 show at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. He also collaborated with the Sankofa Film and Video Collective, advising on productions including The Passion of Remembrance (1986) and Looking for Langston (1988).

In 1995, Bailey curated Mirage: Enigmas of Race, Difference, and Desire at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. with Petrine Archer-Straw and Richard J. Powell at Whitechapel Art Gallery in London.

Bailey has extensively written about photography and film. In 1992, he co-edited an issue of Ten.8 with Stuart Hall, "The critical decade: black British photography in the 1980s". He is founder and director of the International Curators Forum (ICF) and currently is acting director of the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas in Nassau.

Bailey curated the exhibition Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now, shown at Tate Britain from 1 December 2021 to 3 April 2022.

Bailey was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2007, for services to the visual arts.

Personal life Bailey's partner is artist Sonia Boyce and the couple have two daughters.