The Edgemont Art department would like to celebrate Black History Month (February) and Women’s History Month (March) by honoring Carrie Mae Weems (born April 20, 1953) an American artist working in text, fabric, audio, digital images and 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.
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 the view 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.
Her talents have been recognized by Harvard University and Wellesly College, with fellowships, artist-in-residence and visiting professor positions. She taught photography at Hampshire Sollege in the late 1980s and shot the "Kitchen Table" series in her home in Western Massachusetts. Weems is one of six artist-curators who made selections for Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection, at the Guggenheim museum in 2019/20.
Image from the Kitchen Table Series
Carrie Mae Weems