by Carrie Mae Weems
Digital C-prints on paper and sandblasted text on glass.
Weems created this work after discovering a set of daguerreotypes (an early form of photograph) of enslaved men and women in Harvard University’s museum archives.
The daguerreotypes were originally commissioned in 1850 by Harvard scientist Louis Agassiz to support polygenism. This racist theory sought to reinforce white superiority through suggesting that human races have differing genetic origins. Placing these photographs alongside other appropriated 19th and 20th century images of African and African American people, Weems underlines how racial violence has historically been perpetuated through photography.
Weems made a series of changes to the original images.
She enlarged them, added a red filter, and framed them with a circular mount evoking a camera lens. Such interventions recur across Weems’s practice, inviting viewers to question how photographs are constructed to create meaning. Here, Weems restores humanity and agency to the subjects by adding texts which speak across the expanse of history.*
From the exhibition
Carrie Mae Weems: Reflections for Now
(June — September 2023)
The first major UK exhibition dedicated to one of the most influential American artists working today, Carrie Mae Weems.
Carrie Mae Weems is celebrated for her exploration of identity, power, desire and social justice through work that challenges representations of race, gender, and class. The largest presentation of the artist’s multi-disciplinary work in the UK to date, this exhibition brought together photographs, films and installations spanning over three decades.
Weems came to prominence in the early 1980s through photographic work that questioned how the representation of the Black subject, particularly within the US, has historically reproduced systemic racism and inequality. The exhibition captured the performative and cinematic nature of her practice, from the iconic Kitchen Table Series (1990) to the epic film installation The Shape of Things (2021) focusing on the history of violence in the United States.
[*Barbican Centre]
Taken in the Barbican Centre
Estate of flats, maisonettes and terraced houses, hostel, girls' school, school of music and drama, and arts centre (with concert hall, theatre, studio theatre, cinemas, library, art gallery, conservatory, restaurants and offices), with underground car parking, pedestrian walks and canal. Designed 1955-59, arts centre element redesigned 1964-8; built with modifications in 1962-82 to the designs of Chamberlin, Powell and Bon (subsequently Chamberlin, Powell and Bon (Barbican)) for the Corporation of the City of London; engineers, Ove Arup and Partners.
[Historic England]
The name of the Barbican comes from the Low Latin word 'Barbecana' which referred to a fortified outpost or gateway: an outer defence of a city or castle or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defence purposes. The "Barbecana" was probably situated somewhere between the northern side of the Church of St. Giles Cripplegate and the YMCA hostel on Fann Street.
By the 1850s the City was composed of high, dark buildings and narrow streets with inadequate breadth to accommodate the increased volume of horse drawn traffic that endeavoured to pass along them. Above all, it was overcrowded; the population of the City was 129,000 and the number of people living in the parish of Cripplegate, the area now occupied by the Barbican, was 14,000. The Cripplegate area was, to a large extent, occupied by the 'rag trade' – which included anything from the buying and selling of cloth to tailoring and dressmaking.
During the Second World War the City suffered appalling damage and loss of life. The Cripplegate area was virtually demolished and by 1951 the resident population stood at only 48, with 5,324 in the whole City.
Discussions started in 1952 on what sort of redevelopment should take place on the devastated site. Many people involved with the City of London voiced their concern at the dwindling number of residents living within the Square Mile and plans were considered for returning a stable population. A report was presented and the Court of Common Council, of 19 September 1957, accepted as a matter of policy that there should be a genuine residential area created on the site.
[City of London]
