Handsomely composed, deeply moving, timeless or inextricably of their time and place; Gordon Baer’s photographs, now on view at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center in a career-spanning exhibition, are all of the above.  

As the nation observes Black History Month, Beyond Emancipation acknowledges that sometimes it’s tough to keep hope alive. But, even more, the show celebrates the fact that hope has always been there and always will be.   

Melvin Grier, a photojournalist for the late, lamented Post for some 30 years has produced a retrospective of his work, much of it in classic black-and-white but several in color, at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center. The show is called White People: A Retrospective, because — one presumes — as a black man, Grier didn’t take for granted the places to which his assignments gave him privileged access.