{"id":1512,"date":"2024-02-07T18:40:05","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T18:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/rma\/?p=1512"},"modified":"2026-03-19T14:23:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T14:23:17","slug":"american-photographer-carrie-mae-weems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/rma\/2024\/02\/07\/american-photographer-carrie-mae-weems\/","title":{"rendered":"Works by American Photographer Carrie Mae Weems in the Rollins Museum of Art Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1963) Untitled (Woman with Daughter), From the Kitchen Table Series, <\/em>1990 Silver prints, triptych 28 1\/4 x 28 1\/4 inches each. The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins Museum of Art. Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68 Alfond, 2014.1.26. \u00a9 Carrie Mae Weems. Image courtesy of the artist and Jack Shaiman Gallery, New York. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

American photographer Carrie Mae Weems combines social documentary, self-portraiture, and performance to construct complex narratives that confront historical representations of black Americans. Frequently using her own body, Weems enacts racialized types adapted from archival images and restages photographs to expose the complex role images play in perpetuating racial discrimination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weem’s Kitchen Table Series<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"Carrie<\/figure>
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Weems\u2019 Kitchen Table Series,<\/em> one of her most iconic works, comprises twenty black-and-white photographs and fourteen text panels. The series\u2014performed by Weems\u2014focuses on one woman, her self-reflection, and her interactions with family and friends. Weems\u2019s character represents \u201ceverywoman,\u201d but also implicitly exposes social and cultural assumptions about black womanhood. Each scene is posed around an archetypal kitchen table, like a stage set. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purchase<\/strong> Carrie Mae Weems’ Kitchen Table Series<\/em> book at the Rollins Museum of Art<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Carrie Mae Weems’ Untitled (Woman with Daughter)<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Untitled (Woman with Daughter), <\/em>from The Kitchen Table Series<\/em> is part of the Rollins Museum of Art permanent collection<\/a>. Currently on view at The Alfond Inn<\/a> in Winter Park, Florida<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the outtake Untitled (Woman with Daughter),<\/em> the woman and her adolescent daughter perform three scenarios that reveal their complex relationship. Each meticulously staged scene includes the same components\u2014protagonists, props, and place\u2014yet in each frame Weems alters body language and position to drastically change the tone. Through subtle gestures, Weems communicates the range of maternal and familial exchange: curiosity, mutual respect, frustration, neglect, and companionship. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1963) Untitled (Woman with Daughter), From the Kitchen Table Series, <\/em>1990 Silver prints, triptych 28 1\/4 x 28 1\/4 inches each. The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins Museum of Art. Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68 Alfond, 2014.1.26. \u00a9 Carrie Mae Weems. Image courtesy of the artist and Jack Shaiman Gallery, New York. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

While Weems presents a set and characters, she also cleverly reveals the viewer\u2019s own assumptions by providing only minimal information. Depending on the viewer\u2019s life experiences, these scenes could be read in a number of ways. Perhaps this is a single-parent home where the mother is struggling to raise her daughter, or maybe these are glimpses into typical evening homework rituals. In these three images as well as the full Kitchen Table Series<\/em>, what is clear is the intensity of the mother\u2019s effort to maintain or break from her perceived identity. Weems reveals persistent tropes and asks her viewers, regardless of race or gender, to question their own presuppositions. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Untitled (Woman with Daughter), From the Kitchen Table Series,<\/em> on view at The Alfond Inn<\/a> in Winter Park, Florida<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Carrie Mae Weems’ Museum Series<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In her ongoing Museum Series<\/em>, Weems performs a series of more conceptual and layered narratives that move beyond racial identity into the realm of inequality of access and inclusion. In each photograph Weems stands, with her back turned to the camera, in proximity to one of the world\u2019s leading museums and cultural institutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Carrie<\/figure>
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In Louvre<\/em>, she appears in front of I. M. Pei\u2019s iconic pyramid clad entirely in black. Her quiet contemplation is an act of protest and witness to years of discriminatory collecting and exhibiting practices. As a woman of color and an artist, she creates a performance at each site that evokes years of exclusion, reminding us of the distance we have yet to cover on the road to equality.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Carrie Mae Weems<\/strong>\u00a0(American, b. 1963)\u00a0Louvre,\u00a0<\/em>2006\u00a0Digital c-print\u00a073 x 61 in.\u00a0The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins Museum of Art. Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68 Alfond, 2014.1.24. \u00a9 Carrie Mae Weems. Image courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This excerpt by Anna Stothart is from Art for Rollins: The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Volume II<\/em>. Learn more about Carrie Mae Weems and The Rollins Museum of art Collection below.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carrie Mae Weems, Alex Katz, and Mark Bradford, Honored with National Medals of Arts<\/a><\/blockquote>