Carrie Mae Weems (born April 20, 1953) is an American artist working in text, fabric, audio, digital images and installation video, and is best known for her

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...

. She achieved prominence through her early 1990s photographic project ''The Kitchen Table Series''. Her photographs, films and videos focus on serious issues facing

African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

today, including

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagoni ...

sexism Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers pri ...

, politics and personal identity. She once said, "Let me say that my primary concern in art, as in politics, is with the status and place of Afro-Americans in the country." More recently however, she expressed that "Black experience is not really the main point; rather, complex, dimensional, human experience and social inclusion ... is the real point." She continues to produce art that provides social commentary on the experiences of people of color, especially black women, in America. She was named ''Photographer of the Year'' by the Friends of Photography. In 2005, she was awarded the ''Distinguished Photographer's Award'' in recognition of her significant contributions to the world of photography. Her talents have also been recognized by numerous colleges, including

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

and

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial ...

, with fellowships, artist-in-residence and visiting professor positions. She taught photography at

Hampshire College Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mo ...

in the late 1980s and shot the “Kitchen Table” series in her home in Western Massachusetts . She was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2013. In 2015 Weems was named a

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

''Art of Change'' Fellow. In September 2015, the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research presented her with the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal. Weems is one of six artist-curators who made selections for ''Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection'', at the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

in 2019/20. Weems is

Artist in residence Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

. She lives in

Fort Greene, Brooklyn Fort Greene is a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Flushing Avenue and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the north, Flatbush Avenue Extension and Downtown Brooklyn to the we ...

and

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, Yonkers, and Rochester. At the 2020 census, the city' ...

with her husband Jeffrey Hoone.

Biography

Early life and education (1953–1980)

Weems was born in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous ...

in 1953, the second of seven children to Carrie Polk and Myrlie Weems. She began participating in dance and street theater in 1965. At the age of 16, she gave birth to her only child, a daughter named Faith C. Weems. Later that year (1970), she moved out of her parents’ home and soon relocated to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

to study

modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...

with

Anna Halprin Anna Halprin (born Hannah Dorothy Schuman; July 13, 1920 – May 24, 2021) was an American choreographer and dancer. She helped redefine dance in postwar America and pioneer the experimental art form known as postmodern dance and referred to hers ...

at a workshop Halprin had started with several other dancers, as well as the artists

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading f ...

and Robert Morris. Weems recalled, "I started dancing with the famous and extraordinary Anna Halprin. I was in Anna’s company for I suppose, maybe a year or two…experimenting with very deep parts of dance and ideas about dance. Anna was really interested in ideas about peace and using dance as a way to bridge different cultures together as a vehicle for multicultural expression...I wasn’t really so interested in dance, I just knew how to dance really well. I had a really, I think, deep sense of my body from a very early age." Thirty years later in 2008, Weems circled back to dance in her project
Constructing History: A Requiem to Mark the Moment
'' at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, noting "I’m just beginning this project of looking at blues and flamenco, and ideas about dance and movement." She decided to continue her arts schooling and attended the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

, graduating at the age of 28 with a

B.A Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

. She received her MFA from the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is ...

. Weems also participated in the folklore graduate program at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

. While in her early twenties, Weems was politically active in the

labor movement The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement ...

as a union organizer. Her first camera, which she received as a birthday gift, was used for this work before being used for artistic purposes. She was inspired to pursue photography after coming across ''The Black Photographers Annual'', a book of images by African-American photographers including Shawn Walker, Beuford Smith, Anthony Barboza, Ming Smith, Adger Cowans and

Roy DeCarava Roy Rudolph DeCarava (December 9, 1919 – October 27, 2009) was an American artist. DeCarava received early critical acclaim for his photography, initially engaging and imaging the lives of African Americans and jazz musicians in the communi ...

.Bey, Dawoud
"Carrie Mae Weems"
''

Bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechan ...

'', Summer 2009. Retrieved August 1, 2011. This led her to New York City and the

Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 ...

, where she began to meet other artists and photographers such as Coreen Simpson and Frank Stewart, and they began to form a community. In 1976, Weems took a photography class at the Museum taught by

Dawoud Bey Dawoud Bey (born David Edward Smikle; November 25, 1953) is an American photographer and educator known for his large-scale art photography and street photography portraits, including American adolescents in relation to their community, and oth ...

and earned money as an assistant to Anthony Barboza. She returned to San Francisco, but lived bi-coastally and was invited by Janet Henry to teach at the

Studio Museum The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...

and a community of photographers in New York.

1980–2000

In 1983, Weems completed her first collection of photographs, text and spoken word, called ''Family Pictures and Stories''. The images told the story of her family, and she has said that in this project she was trying to explore the movement of black families out of the South and into the North, using her family as a model for the larger theme. Her next series, called ''Ain't Jokin'', was completed in 1988. It focused on racial jokes and internalized racism. Another series called ''American Icons'', completed in 1989, also focused on racism. Weems has said that throughout the 1980s she was turning away from the

documentary photography Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically undertaken as professional pho ...

genre, instead "creating representations that appeared to be documents but were in fact staged" and also "incorporating text, using multiples images,

diptych A diptych (; from the Greek δίπτυχον, ''di'' "two" + '' ptychē'' "fold") is any object with two flat plates which form a pair, often attached by hinge. For example, the standard notebook and school exercise book of the ancient world w ...

s and

triptych A triptych ( ; from the Greek adjective ''τρίπτυχον'' "''triptukhon''" ("three-fold"), from ''tri'', i.e., "three" and ''ptysso'', i.e., "to fold" or ''ptyx'', i.e., "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided ...

s, and constructing narratives." Sexism was the next focal point for her. It was the topic of one of her most well known collections called ''The Kitchen Table'' series which was completed over a two-year period (1989 to 1990), and has Weems cast as the central character in the photographs. About ''Kitchen Table'' and ''Family Pictures and Stories,'' Weems has said: "I use my own constructed image as a vehicle for questioning ideas about the role of tradition, the nature of

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

, monogamy,

polygamy Crimes Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is marr ...

, relationships between men and women, between women and their children, and between women and other women—underscoring the critical problems and the possible resolves." She has expressed disbelief and concern about the exclusion of images of the black community, particularly black women, from the popular media, and she aims to represent these excluded subjects and speak to their experience through her work. These photographs created space for other black female artists to further create art. Weems has also reflected on the themes and inspirations of her work as a whole, saying,

... from the very beginning, I've been interested in the idea of power and the consequences of power; relationships are made and articulated through power. Another thing that's interesting about the early work is that even though I've been engaged in the idea of autobiography, other ideas have been more important: the role of narrative, the social levels of humor, the deconstruction of documentary, the construction of history, the use of text, storytelling, performance, and the role of memory have all been more central to my thinking than autobiography.

2000–present

Weems remains active in the art world with her recent photographic project such as ''Louisiana Project'' (2003), ''Roaming'' (2006), ''Museums'' (2006), ''Constructing History'' (2008), ''African Jewels'' (2009), ''Mandingo'' (2010), ''Slow Fade to Black'' (2010), ''Equivalents'' (2012), ''Blue Notes'' (2014-2015) and the expanded bodies of works including installation, mixed media, and video project. Her recent project, ''Grace Notes: Reflections for Now'', is a multimedia performance that explores "the role of grace in the pursuit of democracy." Her recent work ''Slow Fade to Black'' (2010) explores the lost image and memory of African American female entertainers, including singers, dancers, and actresses, in the twentieth century by playing on the idea of cinematic fade. The freeze frame of a camera lens makes it impossible for us to tell whether or not those images are fading in or fading outs. The series of photos features a number of prominent female African American artist from the last century such as Marian Anderson and Billie Holiday that faded out of our collective memory. The blurred images of the artists serves as metaphor of the on-going struggle for African American entertainers to remain visible and relevant. For the season 2020/2021 at the

Vienna State Opera The Vienna State Opera (, ) is an opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August ...

Weems designed the large-scale picture (176 sqm) ''Queen B (Mary J. Blige)'' as part of the exhibition series ''Safety Curtain'', conceived by museum in progress."Safety Curtain 2020/2021"
museum in progress, Vienna. Weems has been represented by

Jack Shainman Gallery Jack Shainman Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in New York City. The gallery was founded by Jack Shainman and Claude Simard (19562014) in 1984 in Washington, D.C. The gallery has a focus on artists from Africa, East Asia, and North America. ...

since 2008.

Publications

* ''Carrie Mae Weems : The Museum of Modern Art (N.Y.)'', 1995. * ''Carrie Mae Weems : Image Maker'', 1995. * ''Carrie Mae Weems : Recent Work'', 1992––1998, 1998. * ''Carrie Mae Weems: In Louisiana Project'', 2004. * ''Carrie Mae Weems: Constructing History'', 2008. * ''Carrie Mae Weems : Social Studies'', 2010. * ''Carrie Mae Weems : Three Decades of Photography and Video'', 2012. *''Carrie Mae Weems'',

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Univers ...

, 2012. The first major survey of Weems' career and includes a collection of essays from scholars in addition to over 200 of Weems' works. * ''Carrie Mae Weems: Kitchen Table Series'', 2016.

Exhibitions

The first comprehensive retrospective of her work opened in September 2012 at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...

, as a part of the center's exhibition ''Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video''. Curated by Katie Delmez, the exhibition ran until January 13, 2013, and later traveled to

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum bec ...

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

, and the

Cantor Center for Visual Arts The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. ...

. The 30-year retrospective exhibition opened in January 2014 at the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. This was the first time an "African-American woman asever given a solo exhibition" at the Guggenheim. Weems' work returned to the in October 2013 as a part of the center's ''30 Americans'' gallery, alongside black artists ranging from

Jean-Michel Basquiat Jean-Michel Basquiat (; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat first achieved fame as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, alongside ...

Kehinde Wiley Kehinde Wiley (born February 28, 1977) he returned to Nigeria, leaving Freddie to raise the couple's six children. 3/sup> Wiley has said that his family survived on welfare checks and the limited income earned by his mother's 'thrift store' – ...

. In 2021, Weems presented "The Shape of Things" exhibit at the

Park Avenue Armory __NOTOC__ The Park Avenue Armory Conservancy, generally known as Park Avenue Armory, is a nonprofit cultural institution within the historic Seventh Regiment Armory building located at 643 Park Avenue on New York City's Upper East Side. The ins ...

. Her first solo exhibition in Germany, shown in 2022 at the

Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart The Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart was founded in 1827 and is one of the oldest art associations in Germany. The association, which today has around 3,000 members, is based in the Kunstgebäude Stuttgart and is dedicated to communicatin ...

, is titled ''The Evidence of Things Not Seen''.

Notable works in public collections

*''Girl evidently the man plans on staying'' (1987),

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Buil ...

*''Kitchen Table Series'' (1990, printed 2003),

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

, Washington, D.C. *''Shape of Things (female)'' (1993, printed 2000),

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

*''See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil'' (1995),

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ...

*''From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried'' (1995-1996),

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

*''You Became an Accomplice'' (1995-1996),

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

, New York *''The Shape of Things'' (1996),

Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...

; and

*''Untitled'', after the ''

Robert Gould Shaw Memorial The ''Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth Regiment'' is a bronze relief sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens opposite 24 Beacon Street, Boston (at the edge of the Boston Common). It depicts Colonel Robert Gould Shaw l ...

'' (1996, printed 2020), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. *''Untitled (Ella on Silk)'' (2014),

Awards

* 2005: Distinguished Photographers Award * 2007: Anonymous Was A Woman Award * 2013: Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award * 2013: MacArthur Fellow, "Genius" Award * 2014: BET Visual Arts Award * 2014: Lucie Award * 2015: ICP Spotlights Award from the International Center of Photography. * 2015: Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow * 2015: W. E. B. Du Bois Medal from Harvard University * 2015: Honorary Doctorate from the School of Visual Arts * 2016: National Artist Award,

Anderson Ranch Arts Center Anderson Ranch Arts Center is a non-profit arts organization founded in 1966 and located in Snowmass Village, Colorado. They host an artist in residency program and the center offers workshops and classes by artists in the summer months of June, J ...

* 2016: Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theatre * 2016: College Arts Association * 2016: DeFINE ART * 2016: Art of Change Fellow, Ford Foundation * 2017: Honorary

Doctor of Fine Arts Doctor of Fine Arts (D.F.A.) is a doctoral degree in fine arts, may be given as an honorary degree (a degree ''honoris causa'') or an earned professional degree (in the UK). Description Doctoral programmes leading to DFAs are of equivalent level ...

degree from

* 2017: Inga Maren Otto Fellowship, The Watermill Center * 2019: Honorary Fellowship of the

Royal Photographic Society The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is one of the world's oldest photographic societies. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as the Photographic Society of London with ...

, Bristol. * 2020: Induction into the

International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Louis, Missouri honors those who have made great contributions to the field of photography. History In 1977 the first Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Santa Barbara, California and ...

References

External links

*
Carrie Mae Weems biography
Galerie Barbara Thumm

* ttp://fristcenter.org/calendar-exhibitions/detail/carrie-mae-weems-three-decades-of-photography-and-video "Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video", Frist Center for Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee
"Carrie Mae Weems: Photographer and Video Artist"
MacArthur Foundation. (2013, September 24). * Sturtz, Ken. (2013, September 25)

Syracuse.com
Carrie Mae Weems in the Minneapolis Institute or Art
Minneapolis, MN
Womanism and Black Feminism in the works of Carrie Weems

Carrie Mae Weems
on the African American Visual Artists Database {{DEFAULTSORT:Weems, Carrie Mae American multimedia artists 1953 births Living people African-American contemporary artists American contemporary artists African-American photographers African-American women artists American women printmakers MacArthur Fellows California Institute of the Arts alumni Hampshire College faculty Harvard University people University of California, San Diego alumni Artists from Brooklyn Artists from Portland, Oregon Photographers from New York (state) Photographers from Oregon Artists from Syracuse, New York 20th-century American photographers 21st-century American photographers 20th-century American printmakers People from Fort Greene, Brooklyn 20th-century American women photographers 21st-century American women photographers American women academics African-American printmakers 20th-century African-American women 20th-century African-American artists 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American artists African-American history of Oregon