tion. After this series, text and audio would become
increasingly important to her style.
By examining and reinterpreting the production of
visual and written language systems, from the late
1980s to the early 1990s, Weems was among many
artists who used the conceptual approaches of post-
modernism to deconstruct issues of gender, race,
class, and sexuality.Ain’t Jokin’(1987–1988),Amer-
ican Icons(1988–1989), andColored People(1989–
1990) are her most controversial series in how they
oscillate between documentary practice and the con-
ceptual fronts of contemporary art. Particularly with
Ain’t Jokin’, Weems directly confronts the effect of
racial stereotypes and kitsch fascinations, reproach-
ing popular culture for adapting the various lan-
guage systems that reinforce racial categorizations
and inequality.
Much of Weems’s discussions revolve around dis-
location, using the African Diaspora as a means to
address cultural displacement. Sea Islands Series
(1991–1992) is a point of stylistic intersection, start-
ing fromFamily Picturesand continuing through to
more recent work,Africa Series(1991–1992),Ritual
and Revolution(1998),The Jefferson Suite(1999),
andThe Hampton Project(2000). TheSea Islands
photographs and text sympathized with the legacy of
the Gullah of the Southeastern coastal regions, who
during the nineteenth-century were a surviving com-
munity of previously enslaved Ibo people continuing
African traditions in isolation from dominant Amer-
ican culture, which had been documented in an
important series of work by Doris Ulmann in the
1920s. This series included other mediums, such as
collectable china plates, printed with text that began
with the phrase ‘‘Went Looking for Africa.’’ The text
presents an omnipresent voice that locates the Afri-
can Diaspora in American culture, a pervasive
exchange of influence between the two.Sea Islands
establishes Weems’s interdisciplinary approach to
photography as a means to insert the individual
experience within the communal search for cultural
identity. Her most recent series,The Jefferson Suite
andThe Hampton Project, are room-sized installa-
tions that combine photo-silkscreened banners, text,
recorded sound, and photography to pursue the
connections of people within cultures. Nineteenth-
century issues resurface in these series, questioning
advancements in genetic science and historical roles
in education.
In an earlier landmark work, Weems examined
the complexity of modern life by focusing on the
prescribed feminine space of the home. Kitchen
Table Series(1990) positioned the audience at the
end of a table, a potential on-looker of complex
scenes that revealed the taught relationships between
awoman,playedbyWeems,andherhusbandand
her children. The composition used a cinematic ap-
proach, demanding direct engagement with Weems’s
character to offer an alternative to the feminist gaze
theories of Laura Mulvey that became instrumental
for artists such as Cindy Sherman. Weems’s poetic
and witty text frustrated a simple reading of the
scenes as a woman’s dilemma and interjected instead
an existential stance on the collective search between
man, woman, and child for the keys to life.Kitchen
Table Seriesdrew significant critical attention, moti-
vating inclusion with group exhibitions such as
Urban Home(1990) at the Studio Museum in Har-
lem,Pleasures and Terrorsat MoMA, and the Whit-
ney Biennial (1991). A similar format was used for
Jim, If You Choose...(1990), which addressed the
predicament of the Black male and the individual
responsibility in the determination of one’s fate; it
proved vital to the Whitney Museum of American
Art’s exhibitionBlack Male: Representations of Mas-
culinity in Contemporary American Art(1994).
As a folklorist, photographer, writer, historian,
and performer, artist-in-residence awards and visit-
ing professorships have brought Weems to differ-
ent corners of the United States: from California to
Washington State, to Chicago, to New York, to
Massachusetts, and to Florida. In 1996, she re-
ceived the distinguished Alpert Award in the Arts,
which allowed her to travel to Germany for a year’s
residency. By then, Weems had shown in interna-
tional exhibitions in Austria, Germany, and Korea.
In 1993, The National Museum of Women in the
Arts organized a solo exhibition that traveled to
distinguished American contemporary arts institu-
tions, such as the Walker Art Center in Minneapo-
lis and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Since then, Weems has been included in global art
initiatives with work showing at the 2nd Johannes-
burg Biennale in South Africa (1997) and the
Dak’Art ’98: Biennale of Contemporary Art in
Senegal (1998).
SaraMarionSeealso:DeCarava, Roy; Documentary Photogra-
phy; Feminist Photography; Postmodernism; Re-
presentation and Race; Street PhotographyBiography
Born in Portland, Oregon, 1953. Attended California Insti-
tute of the Arts, Valencia, B.F.A., 1981; University of
California, San Diego, M.F.A., 1984; Graduate Pro-
gram in Folklore, University of California, Berkeley,
California, M.A., 1984–1987. Teaching assistant, Uni-
versity of California at San Diego, 1983–1984; Teaching
assistant, University of California at Berkeley, 1987;WEEMS, CARRIE MAE