A Distant View. Gelatin silver print . 20” x 20” © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
American photographer Carrie Mae Weems got her first camera when she was 21 as a birthday present from her then-boyfriend. She remembers, “At that point politics as my life, and I viewed the camera as a tool for expressing my political beliefs rather than as an art medium.”
.
Over the past four decades, Weems has developed a complex body of art that employs photographs, text, fabric, audio, digital images, installation and video to explore the complexities African American life and history in her artwork. It is a mission she has chosen, and to which she has dedicated her life. Weems observes, “Despite the variety of my explorations, throughout it all it has been my contention that my responsibility as an artist is to work, to sing for my supper, to make art, beautiful and powerful, that adds and reveals; to beautify the mess of a messy world, to heal the sick and feed the helpless; to shout bravely from the roof-tops and storm barricaded doors and voice the specifics of our historic moment.”
.
Read the Full Story at Crave Online