The Barbican Centre Archives

Carrie Mae Weems

Reflections for Now

Exhibition review by Jermaine Francis

Carrie Mae Weems’ work has long questioned how the representation of the Black subject has historically reproduced racism and inequality. On the occasion of Weems’ first major UK solo exhibition, Jermaine Francis considers her distinguished opposition to racial violence and all forms of oppression to engage us in a dialogue about the Black experience and narratives of resilience in the US.

Reflections for Now, at the Barbican, brings together a collection of installations, film and photography by the artist Carrie Mae Weems. For over 30 years, Weems has employed the use of multi-visual disciplines to interrogate the image and its effects on the contemporary Black American experience. Furthermore, the exhibition asks us to consider the work beyond reductionist readings of identity, as Weems has herself written: ‘There are so many avenues of exploration in the work. […] There are ideas about beauty, how beauty functions in the work.’

The exhibition opens with a series of abstract images in Painting the Town (2021), made in the aftermath of the protests that erupted after the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis in 2020. Large-scale and tightly-framed, the photographs of boarded buildings appear to resemble the visual language of abstract expressionism, but flipped on its head, once the context is revealed. The colour blocks demonstrate to the audience an act of erasure: the removal of the evidence of the protesters’ words, which in turn serves as a metaphor for a wider denial. In addition, Weems also suggests another subject of erasure: Black abstract expressionist painters, such as Mary Lovelace O’Neal, whose contribution to the discourse of painting and wider culture have often been overlooked.

The gallery space becomes the battleground in which the agency of the Black woman is asserted. Whether she is in front of the camera or behind the camera, Weems, in the words of Hilarie M. Sheets, ‘us[es] herself as surrogate for all possessed women, controlling narrative both subject and photographer.’ In Roaming (2006), which ends the show, a solitary Black silhouetted figure appears engulfed by institutions, museums, galleries and architectural structures, made even more poignant by Weems’ evocation of Benito Mussolini’s Rome, a reminder of the aesthetics of fascist desires.

Kitchen Table (1990) is an epic series that flows through two rooms, disrupting the one-dimensional representation of the Black woman through the presentation of an unapologetically complex set of narratives by the sophisticated incorporation of performance, construction, text and the self-portrait. In these photographs, Weems is centre stage, presenting her own story. Unlike so many historical depictions of Black women, she demands agency from the viewer, whilst engaging us in a rich dialogue about relationships, race, misogyny, sex and camaraderie.

The amplification of the presence and resilience of Black women is everywhere in this exhibition, and felt no more powerfully than in the installation Case Study Room The portraits of Black Panther members such as Angela Davies and Kathleen Cleaver are presented equally with their male counterparts, their contributions celebrated.

The exhibition takes us on another journey, one of dissonance and erasure that more directly addresses the issues around photography’s distribution and historical use. From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried (1995–96) is a deeply moving and emotional work which deals with the concept of what Mark Sealy refers to as ‘racial time’. Weems asks us to consider ‘the photograph’s function as a sign within the historical conditions’ and how Black people have been historically represented.

The controversial Harvard daguerreotypes of Black slaves, now recontextualised with overlaid titles, proposes the process of dehumanisation, the photographs being complicit in the reinforcement of racial ideologies. It is further into the sequence that we are presented with the Gary Winogrand image of a white woman and a Black man, a couple, holding two chimpanzees. Some Laughed Long & Hard & Loud (1995–96) is the title, and Weems is asking us to consider this and the other images in the room in the context of ‘racial time’. It also calls to mind Jean-François Lyotard’s ideals of the sublime – ‘presenting the unpresentable’ – as well as the work of Alfredo Jarr, which employs aesthetics to unpack social injustices.

These avenues of exploration are what we are constantly asked to engage with throughout the exhibition. Articulating these overlapping themes and strategies most powerfully is The Shape of Things: A Film in Seven Parts (2021), a 45-minute-long panoramic video piece taking the viewer on a nonlinear journey through the history of the USA. Comprising a rich mosaic of archive material, news footage, noir, sound and soft monologues, it gives me a sensation similar to one I felt hearing Larry Heard’s Waterfall (1987). The panoramic screen dominates not just the room but also our eyeline, conjuring parallels to Weems’ protagonist in Roaming. There are particular scenes that are distinctive, a sumptuous frame of a Black woman fixing her gaze towards us, while papers, documents and newspapers cascade around the figure. The appearance of multiple female figures, and one male who dances in the rain, can be read as a sense of defiance but also healing. Early on, we experience a sensation of dissonance, with the screen split vertically to project repeated 1960s archival footage of a Black protest. On the right, a white crowd directs their anger to the image on the left, where a Black man verbally retaliates. A monologue in a male voice informs us that, in the end, they stopped trying because some people cannot be convinced to change.

From the multi-image work, The Push, The Call, The Scream, The Dream (2020), certain images haunt my mind. The first is a portrait of two women side by side, one young and Black, the other white and wearing the uniform of the Ku Klux Klan. The other is of a young boy crying at a funeral, which takes me to a place where I contemplate various events that have happened, and continuous cycles of hate.

We are presented with scenes of modern tragedies in which desperate people attempt to flee wars, famines and droughts: news footage of Afghani families trying to board the disembarking planes, refugees fleeing on boats, combined with ladies of leisure drinking tea from a bygone era; archival films of old comedy circus performances, devious clowns, alongside views of the Capitol riots. These are the consequences of this modern day pantomime and Weems asks us to reflect on America’s polarisation and the collateral damage being the Black demographic. This is reinforced by a scene in which a Black man runs in front of three clocks all set to three o’clock, whilst a voice undulates the dream-like sequence: “commemorating all who have fallen, and all those who have endured, commemorating every Black man who sees age 21…”

The words speak of the other reality; of the Black and brown victims, repeatedly killed at the hands of those in positions of authority, who wear the same uniform as Goodman. In the hypnotic darkness of It’s Over – A Diorama (2021), an installation which I would describe as a memorial to the fallen, Weems presents a sense of hope. We are given propositions by a male voice whilst a camera sweeps over illuminated individuals in a crowd. A kind of manifesto exploring how citizens in the US can maybe find a better way of living, the film ends with the image of Weems swinging to the Jimmy Durante song, Make someone happy. Reminiscent of circus acts, it all feels appropriately bittersweet.

I often found myself questioning whether the wall texts need to be so descriptive of Weems’ intentions, yet this is a criticism that could be levelled at any exhibition. Maybe I wish it was left more to the viewer than some institutions might like to imagine, or maybe what’s most important is to experience a journey, one that tries to engage us in a dialogue about the Black experience and resilience in the US. In a world in which dialogue appears to be under attack, maybe we need this more than ever. ♦

All images courtesy the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York / Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin and the Barbican, London © Carrie Mae Weems.

Carrie Mae Weems: Reflections for Now runs at the Barbican, London until 3 September 2023.

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Jermaine Francis is a UK born and London based photographer and visual artist. Originally from the West Midlands, his work explores power, space, identity, social and political issues. He has exhibited at the ICP New York, Photo Oxford, Saatchi Gallery, Galeriepcp, and the Centre for British Photography. He co-curated Notes on a Native Son at Peckham 24 2023 together with Emma Bowkett.

Images:

1- Carrie Mae Weems , Untitled (Woman Standing Alone) from Kitchen Table Series, 1990 

2- Carrie Mae Weems , Untitled (Woman and Daughter with Make Up) from Kitchen Table Series, 1990

3- Carrie Mae Weems , You Became A Scientific Profile; A Negroid Type; An Anthropological Debate; and & A Photographic Subject from From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, 1995-96 

4- Carrie Mae Weems , If I Ruled the World, 2004 

5- Carrie Mae Weems , The Assassination of Medgar, Malcolm and Martin from Constructing History, 2008 

6- Carrie Mae Weems , Still from Cyclorama – The Shape of Things: A Video in 7 Parts, 2021 

7- Carrie Mae Weems,  The Louvre from Museums, 2006 

8- Carrie Mae Weems , Philadelphia Museum of Art from Museums, 2006 

9- Carrie Mae Weems , When and Where I Enter — Mussolini’s Rome from Roaming, 2006 

10- Carrie Mae Weems,  The Edge of Time — Ancient Rome from Roaming, 2006 

11- Carrie Mae Weems , Lincoln, Lonnie, and Me — A Story in 5 Parts, 2012 

1000 Words

Curator Conversations

#11 Alona Pardo

Alona Pardo is a Curator at Barbican Art Gallery, the Barbican Centre London. She has curated and edited several exhibitions and accompanying publications, including most recently: Masculinities: Liberation through Photography (2020); Trevor Paglen: From Apple to Anomaly (2019); Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing (2018); Vanessa Winship: And Time Folds (2018); Another Kind of Life: Photography on the Margins (2018) and Richard Mosse: Incoming (2017), among others.

What is it that attracts you to the exhibition form?

The exhibition form has always held a particular attraction for me because of its inherent multiplicity of form. By that I am referring to the often-lengthy process involved in curating an exhibition, which happens over time and is a process that allows for space to reflect, probe and further refine ideas. I love the process of casting the net wide and researching artists and specific works, playing with different permutations and ultimately allowing a narrative and inherent logic to emerge. It’s a like a huge jigsaw puzzle that you lovingly put together. However, without a doubt the most rewarding aspect of exhibition making is working closely with artists and giving them space for their ideas to coalesce through the exhibition form. Often when I’m working with artists I really see myself as an enabler or facilitator, my role is really to guide them through the spatial complexity of working in the Barbican. Equally rewarding is meeting lenders and experts in the field who are often so generous in imparting their knowledge.

On a more serious note, I believe exhibitions play a vital role – above and beyond retinal pleasure – which is to make manifest ideas through the agency of artistic practice and by extension curatorial practice. Ultimately, I believe curatorial practice has a social function and that this collision between artistic and curatorial practices can activate processes and generate structures that facilitate a dialogical space, a space of negotiation between curators, artists and the public, that hopefully allows for knowledge to form in the curated encounter.

Reflecting on my own experience as a curator, I think it is critical to take into account the space in which I curate – not as an architectural paradigm – but the unique characteristics; in my case, of the Barbican as the largest multi-arts cultural centre in Europe. This very particular dimension informs what we show, how we show it, the connections we make and the curatorial decisions we take, even at a subliminal level. I’m convinced that if I curated shows at the Tate or Hayward they would, by default, take radically different forms, creating other connections perhaps on a more formal or aesthetic level. I would also argue, particularly in my role predominantly as a curator of photography and film, that at the Barbican we have consistently demonstrated our desire to address issues that stretch beyond art and aesthetics, to help us, and by extension the viewer, reflect and understand the world from more complex and nuanced perspectives.

What does it mean to be a curator in an age of image and information excess?

I recently came across a quote by James Baldwin where he says that “artists are here to disturb the peace”. So while it is true that we live in an age where there is a glut of images and information, it strikes me that we need artists more than ever to help distil ideas, visually and conceptually, to pierce through conventional ways of looking at the world and offer us new ways of seeing.

In a recent interview in ArtReview with Catherine Opie, whose work is featured in Masculinities: Liberation through Photography that is alas currently closed due to Covid-19, she says: “Everyone’s asking: aren’t there too many images now, Cathy? Well there’s too much of everything, but it’s how you decide to disseminate that information. That’s what’s interesting to me – this idea of criticality.” And so in this ‘post-truth’ era, I think it is incumbent on artists to make work that questions and overturns received truths and in turn curators need to be supporting artists, whether through newly commissioned work or exhibitions, to bring their work and the ideas embedded in the work, to the attention of as wide an audience as possible.

What is the most invaluable skill required for a curator?

Curating is a shared endeavour and so if I had to highlight one quality above all else it would be a spirit of generosity and collaboration with artists, lenders, estates, peers and colleagues. But there are many other qualities that are essential to be a successful curator: conviction in your ideas and clarity of vision, resilience as, no matter what, you are entering into fraught territory by putting forth a particular position or choosing to give weight to one aspect of an individual’s creative life over another; being both a team leader and a team player; communication coupled with honesty and openness and, last but not least, the ability to compromise, be flexible and listen.

What was your route into curating?

My route into curating was fairly conventional. I studied French and Art History at undergraduate level before embarking on an MA in Curating at Goldsmiths College in the early 2000s at a moment when curatorial practice was undergoing seismic changes and a certain professionalisation. I was fortunate to graduate from Goldsmiths at a time of exponential growth in the museum sector, marked I guess by the inauguration of Tate Modern in 2000. Having had the opportunity to curate shows independently at a time when it seemed access to funding was considerably easier, I was lucky enough to land a job as Assistant Curator at the Barbican a few years later where I’ve been for well over a decade.

What is the most memorable exhibition that you’ve visited?

As a child I remember visiting the Saatchi Gallery at its original location on Boundary Road and coming across the work of Jeff Koons. There were numerous pieces by him on display, but I distinctly remember a piece in which 3 vacuum cleaners encased in Perspex boxes were stacked one on top of the other and being utterly perplexed. The work is Three Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (Two Dr J Silver Series, Spalding NBA Tipoff), 1985. I don’t know why this encounter left such an indelible mark on me, but it certainly made an impression and from that moment on, and being a precocious child, I knew I wanted to understand what it meant. I think that experience was incredibly formative.

However, in terms of ambition and scope, Okwui Enwezor’s documenta11, 2002 certainly tops the bill, for me at least, as the most impactful and meaningful exhibition experience. It felt radical in the way it directly addressed socio-political issues of globalisation and advanced a narrative of decolonisation, both artistically and historically, that I feel has genuinely impacted on both artistic and curatorial practice.

What constitutes curatorial responsibility in the context within which you work?

A curator bears a responsibility towards the work they show and the artists they work with, to the institution they work in as well as to the public. It is a complex triangulation!

On a personal level, I believe curators have a responsibility in giving a voice or platform to those who have been marginalised within the art historical canon, be that women artists whose work has been overlooked, such as Dorothea Lange or indeed Vanessa Winship, a British artist who had been overlooked in her home country but equally to artists of colour or queer-identifying artists in order to relocate them in art history. A curatorial platform for advocacy and activism is a great responsibility, and one no curator takes lightly.

What is the one myth that you would like to dispel around being a curator?

“Pity the beleaguered museum curator. Mired in administration, fighting scholarly turf wars, courting egomaniacal benefactors and collectors, and attempting to infuse critical heft into the next blockbuster show, how does she find time to respond to the reconstitution of her profession as an art form open to every gifted flaneur with a knack for designing brochures?” Michael J. Kowalski, The Curatorial Muse (2010). I think that says it all!

What advice would you give to aspiring curators?

To be confident in your opinions, to look critically at the world, visit as many exhibitions as possible, engage with current debates around artistic practice; and, most importantly, to independently curate in all sorts of venues, organise talks or write reviews etc (even if only for your own pleasure). It’s all about gaining experience and confronting new scenarios from which we learn more about ourselves. I have always found the most torturous scenarios the ones from which I learn the most!♦

Further interviews in the Curator Conversations series can be read here.

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Curator Conversations is part of a collaborative set of activities on photography curation and scholarship initiated by Tim Clark (1000 Words and The Institute of Photography, Falmouth University), Christopher Stewart (London College of Communication, University of the Arts London) and Esther Teichmann (Royal College of Art) that has included the symposium, Encounters: Photography and Curation, in 2018 and a ten week course, Photography and Curation, hosted by The Photographers’ Gallery, London in 2018-19.

Images:

1-Alona Pardo