As some of the powerfully influential American artists of the day, Carrie Mae Weems makes art able to elevating all who’re willing. Her work, which engages directly with crucial questions of cultural identity, social justice, power structures and desire, is capable of “shake us out of our bullshit” and cut through the noise of ongoing discourses straight to the visceral, physical, beating heart of the matter. 

Reflections for Now at London’s Barbican Art Gallery (Dazed Club members can book half-price tickets here) is Weems’ first major UK retrospective. The survey encompasses work from across the multidisciplinary artist’s profession and spans three a long time of extraordinary photographic series, movies, and installations. From her seminal Kitchen Table Series (1990) to newer work resembling Roaming (2006), Museums (2016), From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried (1995–6) and the seven-chapter panoramic film The Shape of Things (2021), the exhibition draws us in with the shear great thing about what we’re encountering, before hitting us hard with the profundity of the message it delivers. 

Alongside voicing “the specifics of our historic moment”, Weems writes: “My responsibility as an artist is to work, to sing for my supper, to make art, beautiful and powerful, that adds and divulges; to beautify the mess of a messy world.“ The exhibition’s co-curator Raúl Muñoz de la Vega stressed the importance of beauty in Weems’ work. “Beauty and elegance is a key formal aspect of claiming her work,” he tells Dazed. ”With a purpose to lure you to enter a really difficult conversation, she does it with the trick of beauty.”

Much of Weems’ work on display in Reflections for Now also examines the best way during which history is culturally produced and by whom. What ideologies are impregnated throughout the enduring stories we tell ourselves about our own histories? How are seemingly self-evident truths created, disseminated and upheld? How are systems of power and oppression present and visual in every part around us? From scientific studies, anthropologic studies, architecture, urban planning, and the persistent narratives that supposedly make the world legible to us.

Museums (2006) saw the artist taking a series of self-portraits during which, along with her back to the camera, she contemplates the monumental structures of institutions and architecture, from Mussolini’s Fascist architecture to the ruins of ancient Rome and the Louvre. The pictures are beautiful, cinematic. “I’m standing right there as a witness and I’m asking the audience to bring their criticality, together with me, into the examination of cultural space, political space,  social space, Empire,” she explains in a press conference on the Barbican. “Immediately, I used to be very involved within the act of affordance. Like, what did it really mean for me to face in front of the British Museum as a body, as a lady, as a brown person, as a Black person, as a critical observer pondering and wondering in regards to the role of institutions in the development of history; the development of culture, the development of a certain kind of data that is taken into account to be preeminent and essential.”

From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried (1995–6) is a potent, desperately moving artwork which uses nineteenth and Twentieth-century photographs of African and African American people to point out the insidious ways during which the representation of this diaspora has been historically reduced to a set of degrading stereotypes. The images were originally commissioned by Harvard with the aim of proving phenological theories in regards to the superiority of whiteness. Placing poignant text across the portraits, Weems’ attempts to revive the humanity that was denied the themes within the making of those portraits.

When a picture from the work appeared on the duvet of Art in America, Harvard threatened to sue Weems. Muñoz de la Vega tells Dazed. “After reflection and, in fact, just a little moment of fear, she said, ‘Well, actually, possibly it’s best to sue me. Because possibly we should always discuss who owns these images of folks that were in slavery.’” Harvard swiftly withdrew their threat. However the anecdote speaks volumes about ideas of ownership and erasure, reminding us how systems of power proceed to try and assert control over the dominant narratives that shape our perception of the world. Time and time again, Weems fills in those spaces and omissions within the complex, messy stories of history which have either been neglected or erased. “She has said of her work, ‘I just tried to attach the dots.’ And we see here how she makes these powerful connections between histories to see how we will navigate what is going on and what has happened.”

In a day hosted at Barbican, Weems sat down with the exhibition’s curators Raúl Muñoz de la Vega and Florence Ostende to debate the importance of compassion, the phobia of perpetual whiteness, and the unique potency of art. Below, we share some quotes from their conversation.

“I’ve been really doing lots of deep pondering. And I’m at all times surprised by the work, I’m at all times learning something from it. An artwork has its own power; its own ability to disclose specific kinds of data. But I’ve been really pondering a terrific deal about this notion of reflection. I’ve used ideas about reflection again and again and again and again and over and once again. Probably a few of my very first works as a young artist starting out after I was in my early 20s were about reflection. I’ve used mirrors a terrific deal. I’ve used mirrors as a mirrored image for myself and I’ve turned the mirror onto society itself. 

“The thought is just not only the best way during which the word reflects our historical moment – which is very important – however the more essential thing is the best way the audience then begins to reflect on self – on your individual position in relationship to the moment during which we live, on your individual position in relationship to race, on your individual position in relationship to class, on your individual position because it pertains to gender, and sexuality, etc. 

“An artwork has its own power; its own ability to disclose specific kinds of data” – Carrie Mae Weems

“Often, there’s this concept that I’m examining African American culture. It’s partly an examination of African American culture, however it is rather more about whiteness – the phobia of perpetual whiteness as a source of power, suppression, exploitation and oppression. The work is barely talked about in relation to the ways during which that reflective surface is bouncing off the Black body, to the extent that whites are the enemy, which I believe could be a very improper reading of the work. It is vitally much about us – what our interactions mean and the best way during which we’ve – either side – experienced it. What’s our mutual responsibility within the examination, and within the result?

“We’re in trouble… As much as we speak about inclusion, I actually don’t see that, I actually don’t experience it that richly” – Carrie Mae Weems

“We’re in trouble. I take a look at this continuously, and I see binaries in all places. As much as we speak about inclusion, I actually don’t see that, I actually don’t experience it that richly. I see groups of ladies together, groups of Asians together, groups of Blacks together groups. We live our lives in segregated, binary ways. And if that‘s the best way you reside your life, that’s what’s reflected in society. It’s just that easy. And so, for those who resolve if you should change – that we’d like something that’s more holistic –  you then actually need to live your life in that way. I believe that that is why I keep going back to this concept of reflection… because what is absolutely being reflected back is you”  

“America is shifting its demographics, we’re shifting from white to Black, to various shades of brown, and that is going to have substantial and serious implications. The rise of Trumpism in america is the right example of that. Brexit is an ideal indication of this fear of the immigrant; this fear of the shifting demographics. And what it’s really going to mean to society is here, it’s upon us. It’s having serious consequences and sometimes you get to get to see the implications on bodies in real ways. And so [the exhibition] is an exploration, I believe, within the deepest way, of what this moment means for us and to us.”

“Perpetual whiteness is the source of the best anxiety, by way of its construction of power and its ability to dominate lives. And that’s what the work at its core is absolutely about – the best way during which the Black body attempts to keep up or hold on to its humanness in the midst of battling and struggling against forces which are attempting to destroy you.

“I read something this morning about pathology – that’s not the word they used but that’s what it was – and I used to be interested by the pathology of whiteness and the pathology of sexual violence utilized in war… this kind of sick sort of pathology and the circles of power which are encoded inside it.

“The concept one would see a baby – an innocent body – in the course of the act of war, and judge to perpetrate a series of sexual crimes against that child or woman is so wrapped on this twisted notion of power and privilege that it is barely capable of persist due to a certain sort of pathology wrapped around it. And so how can we break past that? How can we see each other? How we see each other as human is deeply essential to our survival, to the extent that we will act a certain sort of brutality upon each other. And that happens due to these circles of corrupt power, and privilege related to power. I believe that if we don’t cope with this, we’re in for further degeneration throughout the culture itself. We’re really on this twisted, twisted place” 

“I’m indignant, I’m enraged, I’m deeply upset, I’m deeply hurt. And yet, as an artist, I like things to look a certain way. I’m extremely considering crafting materials in such a way as to bring you into the room, close to those very complicated issues. 

“Due to this fact, I believe this concept about grace is so essential. I used to be working on this piece, Grace Notes [2016], and I kept pondering, I really like the word ‘grace’ but I wasn’t sure about its meaning. So I called my mother at some point to ask her and we had this incredible conversation. She was not the individual that I expect to present me essentially the most complicated answer, but she is the one who got here up with the fullest answer: that grace lies in compassion and love; that, within the face of rejection, you continue to offer the opposite yourself as a witness to their humanity; you counter their rejection by saying, ‘I still see your humanity.’ What an offering of affection and understanding and forgiveness. 

“Whether I’m critiquing institutions or museums, social systems or relationships it has to come back through a lens of compassion because, otherwise, it’s just anger, it’s just noise” – Carrie Mae Weems

“I believe these ideas are really embedded in my work; they carry through the work. Whether I’m critiquing institutions or museums, social systems or relationships it has to come back through a lens of compassion because, otherwise, it’s just anger, it’s just noise. But when it comes through a lens of compassion, we’re actually capable of see each other in a rather different way, hopefully in a way that obligates us all. Because I believe, and I’m hoping, that not directly, my work is attempting to raise us and likewise to shake us out of our bullshit.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Carrie Mae Weems’ Reflections for Now is running at Barbican Art Gallery until September 3 2023. Dazed Club members can book half-price tickets to the show here. 

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