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Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video

Tags for: Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video
  • Special Exhibition
Sunday, June 30–Sunday, September 29, 2013
Location: The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Gallery and Photography Gallery

Untitled (Colored People Grid) (detail), 2009–10. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Pigment ink prints and colored clay papers; 10 x 10 in. (each). Collection of Rodney M. Miller. © Carrie Mae Weems.

  1.  Untitled (Colored People Grid), 2009–10. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Pigment ink prints and colored clay papers; 10 x 10 in. (each). Collection of Rodney M. Miller. © Carrie Mae Weems. 

  2.  Video still from Afro-Chic, 2009. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). DVD; 5 mins., 30 secs. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. © Carrie Mae Weems. 

  3.  Mother with Children, from Boardwalk, Santa Monica, 1980–82. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Gelatin silver print; 9 1/16 x 13 1/8 in. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. © Carrie Mae Weems. 

  4.  Missing Link (Happiness), from The Louisiana Project, 2003. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Pigment ink print; 36 x 24 in. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. © Carrie Mae Weems. 

  5.  Family Reunion, from Family Pictures and Stories, 1978–84. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Gelatin silver print; 30 x 40 in. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. © Carrie Mae Weems. 

  6.  Untitled (Box Spring in Tree), from Sea Islands Series, 1991–92. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Gelatin silver print; 20 x 20 in. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Gift of Carrie Mae Weems and P.P.O.W. 97.97.1. © Carrie Mae Weems. Photography by Robert Gerhardt. 

  7.  An Anthropological Debate, from From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, 1995–96. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Chromogenic print with etched text on glass; 26 1/2 x 22 3/4 in. Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift on behalf of the Friends of Education of the Museum of Modern Art. From an original daguerreotype taken by J. T. Zealy, 1850. Peabody Museum, Harvard University. © 1977 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. Digital image © 2012 MoMA, NY. 

  8.  Listening for the Sounds of Revolution, from Dreaming in Cuba, 2002. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Gelatin silver print; 28 1/2 x 28 1/2 in. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. © Carrie Mae Weems. 

  9.  A Broad and Expansive Sky—Ancient Rome, from Roaming, 2006. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Digital chromogenic print; 73 x 61 in. Private collection, Portland, Oregon. © Carrie Mae Weems . 

  10.  Untitled (Woman Brushing Hair), from Kitchen Table Series, 1990. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Platinum print; 20 x 20 in. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 2008.116.11. © Carrie Mae Weems. 

  11.  Untitled (Woman Standing Alone), from Kitchen Table Series, 1990. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Platinum print; 20 x 20 in. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 2008.116.20. © Carrie Mae Weems. 

  12.  May Flowers, from May Days Long Forgotten, 2002. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Digital chromogenic print; diam. 33 1/2 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles 2005.51. © Carrie Mae Weems. 
View More CMA Objects in the Exhibition

About The Exhibition

In keeping with a passionate commitment to improving the human condition though her art, Carrie Mae Weems has produced a broad trove of intellectually challenging and aesthetically compelling work that addresses issues of race, gender, and class and places her at the forefront of contemporary art. Yet to date there has not been a major museum survey devoted to this critically and socially engaged artist. The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, in Nashville, Tennessee, has organized a retrospective exhibition composed of approximately 125 photographs, videos, and installations from more than 25 series created over the last three decades. The works come from major collecting institutions, private collections, and the artist's own holdings. The Cleveland Museum of Art will be showing a smaller version of this exhibition. The artist was one of two contemporary artists to speak at the museum on the occasion of its east wing opening in 2009.

The first section of the exhibition will feature selections from the 1980s and early 1990s that explore the construction of identity, especially as it relates to race, sex, and class. The next section will feature works made in response to historical situations that have impacted African American identity, as well as that of other disempowered peoples. A third grouping will contain photographs that focus on the role of place in Weems’s examination of the underlying causes and effects of racism, slavery, and imperialism. A notion of universality is present throughout: while African-Americans are typically her primary subjects, Weems wants “people of color to stand for the human multitudes” and for her art to resonate with audiences of all races.

Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video is organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee. This exhibition is supported in part by grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is generously funded by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. The Ohio Arts Council helped fund this exhibition with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence, and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.