Carrie Mae Weems | The Considered
A commitment to history, its exploration and analysis, as well as its revision is ever-present in Weems’ practice. Over the course of the past three decades, Weems continued to reconsider history through her critical and insightful lens. Much of her multidisciplinary work orients us to the complex ways in which the past is consistently and without fail carried forward into the present. Weems’ still and moving images reveal families, men, women and the individuals that meld with and yield feelings of hope, despair, solitude, pride, strife, and optimism. Her art is a critical reflection on how history gets constructed, layered, juxtaposed and articulated, and what roles we — both individually and collectively — have occupied within it.

Carrie Mae Weems has created a complex body of work that centers on her commitment to helping us better understand our present moment by examining our collective past. Determined to enter the picture — both literally and metaphorically — Weems has sustained an on-going dialogue within contemporary discourse for over thirty-five years. Weems has taken a stand against violence and the perpetuation of a failing system in her community with projects like Operation: Activate, an anti-violence public art campaign, and the Institute of Sound and Style, a summer school program she established in 2012 in Syracuse, New York that pays students of lower incomes, ages 15-21, a stipend to learn skills for arts and fashion careers. Her recent performance, Grace Notes: Reflections for Now pays tribute to the Emanual 9, and to the many young black men who’ve lost their lives during this period of escalating violence. Ms. 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.

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photo © Carrie Mae Weems, Scenes & Takes (To Look Back in Anger) 2016.