Carrie Mae Weems
March 6, 2014
American artist Carrie Mae Weems is a star in the contemporary art world known for her powerful and provocative photographs and videos. Weems’ reputation has grown over the course of her career, through documentary and autobiographical work and also more conceptual and philosophically complex works, including her groundbreaking Kitchen Table Series (1990). Weems is a socially motivated artist whose work confronts stereotypes and labels. She has said she wants “people of color to stand for the human multitudes” and for her work to resonate with all audiences. In September 2013, Weems was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant,” and the Guggenheim Museum in New York opened a 30-year retrospective of her work in January 2014. The Nasher Museum acquired a work by Weems, the 2003 diptych on view in the exhibition Sound Vision: Contemporary Art from the Collection. Weems grew up in Portland, Oregon, and is based in Syracuse, NY.The annual lecture is made possible by Barbra and Andrew Rothschild. Past speakers include artists Dario Robleto, Eve Sussman and Kehinde Wiley, and Thelma Golden, director of the Studio Museum in Harlem.
Before she delivers the Annual Rothschild Lecture, Carrie Mae Weems visits the gallery to see her 2003 diptych, I Looked and Looked to See What so Terrified You, from the Louisiana Project. Photo by J Caldwell.