
What techniques did Carrie Mae Weems use?
Her complex oeuvre―always ahead of its time, and profoundly formative for younger generations of artists―has employed photography (for which she is best known), fabric, text, audio, digital images, installation and video.
What kind of photography does Carrie Mae Weems do?
Carrie Mae Weems, (born April 20, 1953, Portland, Oregon, U.S.), American artist and photographer known for creating installations that combine photography, audio, and text to examine many facets of contemporary American life.
How does Carrie Mae Weems attempt to make the invisible visible in her work?
On September 12, 2015, Carrie Mae Weems discussed her artistic process, including her attempts to make “the invisible visible” by focusing on individuals and groups of people disproportionally left out of the historical record.
What does Carrie Weems reveal in her photography work from here I saw what happened and I cried?
With From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, Carrie Mae Weems reveals how photography has played a key role throughout history in shaping and supporting racism, stereotyping, and social injustice.
How was the illusion of smooth motion created in an animated feature?
To create the illusion, still images are played back at a specific speed or frame rate, and when the frame rate is high enough, the viewer's brain stitches them together to create the experience of fluid motion.
How did Carrie Mae Weems become a photographer?
Born in 1953 in Portland, Oregon, Carrie Mae Weems joined Anna Halprin's experimental San Francisco Dancers' Workshop at the age of seventeen and later, in 1976, moved to New York and took photography classes at the Studio Museum in Harlem.
Where did Carrie Mae Weems take her pictures?
She taught photography at Hampshire College 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 Art of Change Fellow.
How many photographs make up Weems famous series on the history of blacks as subjects in American photography?
In this work, made up of 33 separate prints, all of the images are lifted from found sources, the main one being an archive of 1850 daguerreotype images of African-born black slaves in South Carolina.
Why did Carrie Mae Weems create the Kitchen Table Series?
Weems explains she hoped the Kitchen Table Series would not only “be a voice for African-American women but would be a voice, more generally, for women.” There is a narrative within each picture and one that builds across the series. She has created an intimate space that a "cast of characters" moves through.
What is Carrie Mae Weems best known for?
photographyCarrie 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. She achieved prominence through her early 1990s photographic project The Kitchen Table Series.
How many photographs Weems famous series on the history of blacks as subjects in American photography?
33 separateIn this work, made up of 33 separate prints, all of the images are lifted from found sources, the main one being an archive of 1850 daguerreotype images of African-born black slaves in South Carolina.
What does Carrie Mae Weems do now?
Weems has been represented by Jack Shainman Gallery since 2008, and is currently Artist in Residence at the Park Avenue Armory. She lives in Syracuse, New York, with her husband Jeffrey Hoone who is Executive Director of Light Work.
Why did Carrie Mae Weems create the Kitchen Table Series?
Weems explains she hoped the Kitchen Table Series would not only “be a voice for African-American women but would be a voice, more generally, for women.” There is a narrative within each picture and one that builds across the series. She has created an intimate space that a "cast of characters" moves through.
What was Carrie Mae Weems' first collection of photographs?
In 1983, Carrie Mae 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 genre, instead "creating representations that appeared to be documents but were in fact staged" and also "incorporating text, using multiples images, diptychs and triptychs, 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, monogamy, polygamy, 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,
What is Carrie Mae Weems known for?
In her almost 30-year career, Carrie Mae Weems has won numerous awards. 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 and Wellesley College, with fellowships, artist-in-residence and visiting professor positions. She taught photography at Hampshire College in the late 1980s. She was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2013. In 2015 Weems was named a Ford Foundation 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.
When was Carrie Mae Weems published?
A full-color, visual book, titled Carrie Mae Weems, was published by Yale University Press in October 2012. The book offers the first major survey of Weems' career and includes a collection of essays from leading and emerging scholars in addition to over 200 of Weems' most important works.
When did Carrie Mae Weems return to the Frist?
Weems' work returned to the Frist in October 2013 as a part of the center's 30 Americans gallery, alongside black artists ranging from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Kehinde Wiley. Carrie Mae Weems, "The Hampton Project," exhibition at the Williams College Museum of Art, 2000. Carrie Mae Weems' work is included in the collections ...
Where is Carrie Mae Weems' first retrospective?
Select exhibitions. The first comprehensive retrospective of her work opened in September 2012 at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee, as a part of the center's exhibition Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video.
Who is Carrie Weems?
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. 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 today, including racism, sexism, politics and personal identity.
Where was Carrie Weems born?
Carrie Mae Weems was born in Portland, Oregon 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 first and only child, a daughter named Faith C. Weems.
What museum did Carrie Mae Weems work in?
First artist to be commissioned by the Getty. Projects 52, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. First significant solo show at the Museum of Modern Art.
Where is Carrie's work featured?
Carrie's work is featured in The St. Louis American, Artnews, Burn Away, and UC San Diego News Center.
What is Carrie Mae Weems's past tense?
This year the Guggenheim Museum presented Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video , Carrie Mae Weems LIVE: Past Tense/Future Perfect, and honored Carrie at the Guggenheim International Gala.
What award did Carrie receive?
Carrie receives the WEB DuBois Medal, the ICP Spotlight Award , and is the honoree at the American Academy in Rome Gala.
What channel is Art21 on?
Art21, television program for PBS, New York, NY.
What is Carrie's honorary doctorate?
Carrie receives an honorary doctorate from the School of Visual Arts, awards from Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theater, College Arts Association, and DeFINE ART, and is named a Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow.
Where is MoMA film coming up for air?
Coming Up for Air, Meaning & Landscape, MoMA Film at the Gramercy, New York.
New volume fills gap in scholarship on work of celebrated Black photographer
The American artist Carrie Mae Weems for more than 30 years has been creating works largely centered on the lives of women, working-class people, and Black people.
Sarah Elizabeth Lewis
Gazette: How did you want to shape the book “ October Files: Carrie Mae Weems ,” given the gap in scholarship on Weems?
What is Carrie Mae Weems's purpose in photography?
Carrie Mae Weems on using photography to peel back the image of power. Artist Carrie Mae Weems has used photography to explore national and personal history, using herself and her family as stand-ins to explore common narratives , and using the medium as a tool to challenge stereotypes. Chief arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown talks to ...
Who is Carrie Mae Weems?
The artist who is Carrie Mae Weems is in the midst of a major moment, winning a MacArthur genius award last week, honored with a retrospective of her work that has traveled around the country, ending at New York's Guggenheim Museum, where she was the first African-American woman ever given a solo exhibition.
What is the name of the book that Weems took of slaves?
One of her best known series is "From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried," in which Weems took 19th century photographs, many slaves, tinted them a deep red and put text across them, "A Negroid Type," "An Anthropological Debate," "And Their Daughter," in effect giving these objectified people a new life as subjects in their own right.
What is the project that Weems is working on?
And the story continues. She's at work on a new project called "Swinging Into 60," about women like her in their 60s who came of age in the 1960s.
Is Weems a silent witness?
Here she says he's a silent witness of institutions and places.

Overview
Biography
Weems was born in Portland, Oregon 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 to study modern dance with Anna Halprin at a workshop Halprin had started with several other danc…
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.
Exhibitions
The first comprehensive retrospective of her work opened in September 2012 at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee, 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, Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Canto…
Notable works in public collections
• Girl evidently the man plans on staying (1987), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
• Kitchen Table Series (1990, printed 2003), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• Shape of Things (female) (1993, printed 2000), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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
External links
• Official website
• Carrie Mae Weems biography, Galerie Barbara Thumm
• "Testimony of a Cleareyed Witness," by Holland Cotter, The New York Times, Feb. 23, 2014
• "Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video" Archived 2013-05-09 at the Wayback Machine, Frist Center for Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee