Carrie Mae Weems

Carrie Mae Weems (* 1953) ist eine US-amerikanische Medienkünstlerin, die mit Text, Stoffen, digitalen Bildern und Video-Installationen arbeitet. Sie ist bekannt für ihre Werke in der Fotografie und erhielt zahlreiche Auszeichnungen.

Leben Weems kam in Portland (Oregon) als eines von sieben Kindern von Carrie Polk und Myrlie Weems zur Welt. Im Alter von 16 Jahren wurde sie Mutter einer Tochter, Faith C. Weems, und zog nach San Francisco, um Modern Dance bei Anna Halprin zu studieren. Sie erlangte ihren Bachelor-Abschluss am California Institute of the Arts, und ihren Master an der University of California, San Diego. Weems lebt in Brooklyn, New York City, mit ihrem Ehemann Jeffrey Hoone.

Werk

Weems erste Sammlung von Fotografien, Texten und Spoken Word erschien 1983 unter dem Titel Family Pictures and Stories. Dieses und viele ihrer darauffolgende Werke thematisieren Rassismus und schwarze Identität in Amerika. In einer ihrer bekanntesten Sammlungen, The Kitchen Table, geht es um Sexismus.

Die erste umfassende Retrospektive ihres Werks wurde im September 2012 im First Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee unter dem Titel Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video (kuratiert von Katie Delmez) gezeigt. Danach wanderte die Ausstellung in das Portland Art Museum, in das Cleveland Museum of Art, in das Cantor Center for Visual Arts sowie in das Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Es war die erste Einzelausstellung einer afroamerikanischen Frau im Guggenheim.

Das Buch Carrie Mae Weems, herausgegeben von der Yale University Press im Oktober 2012, bietet einen Überblick des Werks der Künstlerin. Es enthät 200 ihrer Arbeiten sowie eine Sammlung von theoretischen Aufsätzen.

Für die Saison 2020/2021 in der Wiener Staatsoper gestaltete Weems als 23. Kunstwerk für die von museum in progress konzipierte Ausstellungsreihe „Eiserner Vorhang“ das riesige Großbild (176 m²) „Queen B (Mary J. Blige)“.

Der Württembergische Kunstverein Stuttgart widmet ihr eine umfassende Einzelausstellung ab April 2022 unter dem Titel The Evidence of Things Not Seen.Umrisse Magazin der Kulturstiftung des Bundes Nr. 35/2020

Ausstellungen (Auswahl)

Women in Photography, Cityscape Photo Gallery, Pasadena, 1981 Multi-Cultural Focus, Barnsdall Art gallery, Los Angeles, 1981 Family Pictures and Stories, Multi-Cultural Gallery, San Diego, 1984 People Close Up, Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1986 Social Concerns, Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore, 1986 Past, Present, Future, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 1986 Visible Differences, Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, 1987 The Other, The Houston Center for Photography, Houston, 1988 A Century of Protest, Williams College, Williamstown, 1989 Black Women Photographers, Ten-8, London, 1990 Who Counts?, Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago, 1990 Biological Factors, Nexus Gallery, Atlanta, 1990 Trouble in Paradise, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Boston, 1990 Whitney Biennial, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1991 Of Light and Language, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburg, 1991 Pleasures and terrors of Domestic Comfort, MOMA, New York, 1991 Calling Out My Name, CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, 1991 Disclosing the Myth of Family, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 1992 Schwarze Kunst: Konzepte zur Politik und Identität, Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Berlin, 1992 Dirt and Domesticity: Constructions of the Feminine, Whitney Museum of American Art at equitable Center, New York, 1992 Art, Politics, and Community, William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Mansfield, 1992 Mis/Taken identities, University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (gereist nach: Museum Folkwang, Essen; Forum Stadtpark, Graz; Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen im Forum Langenstraße; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek; Western Gallery, Western Washington University, Bellingham), 1992–1994 Photography: Expanding the Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1992–1994 Sea Island, The Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, 1993 Carrie Mae Weems (traveling exhibition), The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, 1993 And 22 Million Very Tired and very Angry People, Walter/McBean gallery, San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco, 1993 Enlightenment, Revolution, A Gallery Project, Ferndale, 1993 Fictions of the Self: The Portrait in Contemporary Photography, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro; Herter Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1993–1994 The Theatre of Refusal: Black Art and the Mainstream Criticism, Fine Arts Gallery, University of California, Irvine, (gereist nach: University of California, Davis, CA; and University of California, Riverside), 1993–1994 Women's Representation of Women, Sapporo American Center Gallery, Sapporo (gereist nach: Aka Renga Cultural Center, Fukuoka City; Kyoto International Community House, Kyoto; Aichi Prefectural Arts Center, Nagoya; Osaka Prefectural Contemporary Arts Center; Spiral Arts Center, Tokyo), 1994 Imagining Families: Images and Voices, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1994–1995 Black Male, Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, und The Armand Hammer Museum of Art, Santa Monica, 1994–1995 Carrie Mae Weems Reacts to Hidden Witness, J. Paul Getty Museum of Art, Malibu, 1995 Projects 52, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1995 StoryLand: Narrative Vision and Social Space, Walter Phillips gallery, The Banff Center for the Arts, Banff, 1995 Inside the Visible, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, 1996 Gender - Beyond Memory, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, 1996 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, Africus Institute for Contemporary Art, Johannesburg, 1997 Bearing Witness: Contemporary Works by African-American Artists, 1998 Taboo: Repression and Revolt in Modern Art, Gallery St. Etienne, New York, 1998 Tell me a Story: Narration in Contemporary Painting and Photography, Center National d’Art Contemporain de Grenoble, Grenoble, 1998 Recent Work: Carrie Mae Weems 1992–98, Everson Art Museum, Syracuse, 1998–1999 Who, What, When, and Where, Whitney Museum of American Art at Phillip Morris, New York, 1998–1999 Ritual & Revolution, DAK'ART 98: Biennale of Contemporary Art, Galerie National d’Art, Dakar, 1998–1999 It's Only Rock and Roll, 1999 Claustrophobia: Disturbing the Domestic in Contemporary Art, 1999 Histories (Re)membered, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, 1999 Carrie Mae Weems: The Hampton Project, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, 2000–2003 Looking Forward, Looking Back, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University, Middletown, 2000 Material and Matter: Loans to and Selections from the Studio Museum Collection, The Studio Museum in Harlem, 2000 The View From Here: Issues of Cultural Identity and Perspective in Contemporary Russian and American Art, Tretyakov Gallery, Moskau, 2000 Strength and Diversity: A Celebration of African-American Artists, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, 2000 Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present, Smithsonian Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and culture, Washington, 2000 History Now, touring exhibition beginning at the Liljevalchs Konsthall and Riksutstallningar, Stockholm, 2002 Pictures, Patents, Monkeys, and More... On Collecting, traveling exhibition curated by Independent curators International, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, 2002 The Louisiana Project, Newcomb Art Museum|Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans, 2003 Cuba on the Verge, International Center of Photography, New York, 2003 Crimes and Misdemeanors: Politics in U.S. Art of the 1980s, Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati, 2003 Double Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art Since 1970, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 2004 Beyond Compare: Women Photographers on Beauty, BCE, Toronto, 2004 African American Art - Photographs from the Collection, Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, 2005 Figuratively Speaking, Miami Art Museum, Miami, 2005 The Whole World is Rotten, Jack Shainman gallery, New York, 2005 Common Ground: Discovering Community in 150 Years of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2005 Out of Time: A Contemporary View, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2006 Black Alphabet: Contexts of Contemporary African-American Art, Zachęta national gallery of Art, Warschau, 2006 Hidden in Plain Sight, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2007 Embracing Eatonville, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, 2007 The 21st century, The Feminine Century, and the century of Diversity and Hope, 2009 International Incheon Women Artists' Biennale, Incheon, 2009–2010 Colour Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today, Tate Liverpool, 2009–2010 Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic, Tate Liverpool, 2009–2010 From Then to Now: Masterworks of Contemporary African American Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, 2009–2010 Carrie Mae Weems: Estudios Sociales, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla, 2010 Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2010 Slow Fade to Black, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, 2010 The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, Nasher Museum, Durham, 2010 Myth, Manners and Memory: Photographers of the American South, De La Waar Pavillion, East Sussex, 2010 Off the Wall: Part 1 – Thirty Performative Actions, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, 2010 The Deconstructive Impulse: Women Artists Reconfigure the Signs of Power, 1973–1991, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, Purchase, New York, 2010 Posing Beauty: African American Images From the 1890s to the Present, Newark Museum, Newark, 2010 Stargazers: Elizabeth Catlett in Conversation with 21 Contemporary Artists, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, 2010 Unsettled: Photography and Politics in Contemporary Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 2010 Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, 2012 This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2012 La Triennale: Intense Proximity, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2012 Havana Biennial, Havanna, 2012 The Maddening Crowd (video installation), McNay Art Museum, Sa Antonio, 2012 Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; Cantor Center for the Visual Arts, Stanford, CA, 2013 Feminist And..., The Mattress Factory, Pittsburg, 2013 Seven Sisters, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, 2013 Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. New York, 2014 P.3 Prospect New Orleans, The McKenna Museum, New Orleans, 2014 Color: Real and Imagined, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, 2014 Carrie Mae Weems: The Museum Series, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, 2014 Wide Angle: American Photographs, University of Kentucky, Lexington, 2014 The Memory of Time, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2015 Triennale di Milano, Mailand, 2015 Winter in America, The School (Jack Shainman Gallery), 2015 An Exhibition of African American Photographers from the Daguerreian to the Digital Eras, Marshall Fine Arts Center at Haveford College, Haveford, PA, 2015 Represent: 200 years of African American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 2015 Under Color of Law, The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art and Ursinus College, Collegeville, 2015 30 Americans, Detroit Institute of Arts, 2015 Grace Notes: Reflections for Now, Spoleto Festival, Spoleto, 2016