TalkingArt_CarrieMaeWeems

8/14/2019 TalkingArt_CarrieMaeWeems

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Tal ki n g Art withC a r r i e M ae W e e m s

btll hwh: Carrie Mae, whenever I set' your work I am deeply moved..Morethan any conte mporary photog raphe r crea ting represenrenons of blackness, your work evokes the exi lic nature ofbJack people. Everyone forgetsthar when we talk about black people living in the diaspore . we're talking about a people who live in exile, and that in some ways, like all otherexiles, we imag ine home, we imagine journeys of return. We embark onsuch journeys by first looking for t races - by eng aging th e pel impsesrthat reveals the multilayered nat ure ofou r experi ence. Derrida's notion ofpal impsest comes to mi nd as I look at you r work . A vision , a journeythrough rime-past , present, and futu re- to unravel connectingthreads is ever-present in }'Du r work. There is both the evocat ion of exilein your work and a pol iti cs of di slocation, when , for examp le, you arecharting your family's movement from the South to Port land , Oregon (Ithink about people often t hinking , well , there are no black people inPortl and), and you are on th e move. Th at policies of d islocation in yourwork makes this new move towards Africa really excit ing. Talk about thisspirit of joumeying , ofhomeland , abou t black people imag ing some kindofstat ic, homogeneous sense of our place.CmT"l( M o t Wl't'fIJJ: In most every black person's life today, home is whereyou lind it , JUS t where you find ir. To me this suggests open possibi lity that home (an be for me Port land , O regon, to the: same extent rhac it canbe New York or Ghana or Mau i or Senegal. I t doesn't matter.bh: Tilt: speci fic posr rncdern deccnsrrucn ve posi rional iry that inte rrogates not ions of fixed origin s, of roots. is nor jus t in this new work thatlays claim to Africa as a possible site of home , but in all your work,CAl W: h om the very beginning,


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Carrie ,l lat Wlt't' I1J . Until led. From tbe Kit chen Tab le !trit!. 1990. SiI ,,"/Wlltl. EdtIlOtl l)! 5. 2 n x 28 114. n Coltrm y 0/ P. P. O.W


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~ " i tT O N M Y ),lI Nn

that son of histo rical movement about. In any esse, the movement of myfamily, leaving Mississippi. eravel iog from rbe Sou rh to the ort h, rhatki nd of mig ration. I wan red to know how I fir into that as a womanwho was already sta rring to move around , sta rti ng ro t ravel, and digg ing,digging .bh: There is that archeological dimension to your searc h expressed in thework. Your journey is int ensified by the way in which both race and gender situate you wit hin a cul tural COnt ext of exilt:. That is doubly intensified when you embrace oppositional th inking , when you resiS{ the formsofdominati on that would keep you in your place. It's not like you retu rn"ro the South" or go anywhere unp rob lem ati ca lly - y o u retu rn as th isperson who early in her life embraced feminist thinking in aver)' exisren.r ially self- reflexive way. You r feminist understand ing of black woma nness has always inspi red }our work. That complex femi nist K'nsib ility isthere in rhe Kllrhm Tabl.t series. I am always annoyed when I read crit icswho are so fixated on th e b lack ness of rhe images t ha t th ey ig no re thequest ion of gender-of desire and power.eMU'I: These images of black men and black women sho uld speak onmany levels . calling to mind in the viewer a range of issues and concerns.bh: Your work compels recogniti on of race and represeru crion even as itmoves beyond race ro an exploration of gende r and powe r that has universa l implications. Many of you r images of b lack women and men raiseissues about the politics of gender in our lives. I am thinking here aboutt he Kiuhtn Tableseries.CAI \f1: Righr . Well . you know, one of rhe th ings rhar J was chinkingabou t was whether it might be possib le to use black subjects to r e p r n universal concerns. wben we wat ch Holl ywood movies, usuall y wit hwhi te sub jects. chose image s create a cultural ter rain that we watch andwalk on and move th rough . I warned to create rhar same kind of experience using my subjects. Yet when I do that . it 's not understood in thatway. Folks refuse to ide nt ify with t he concerns black people expresswhi ch take us beyond ract' into previously undocumen ted emo tionalrealm s. Black imagescan only sta nd for ebemselves and noth ing more .


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LOOKING INTO THE MIRROR, THE BLACK WOMAN ASKED,"MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WAL l , WHO'S THE FINEST OFmEW ALL7"THE MIRROR SAYS, "SNOWWHITE, YOU BLACK BITCH,

AND DON'T YOU FORGET JTlII"Carrie Mat U'/ ms. Mirror/M Irror. 1987. Stillt r prj,tf IInagt. 14 Jh " x1 s." Puptr size 20 " x 16. n COI/rtts) 01P.P.O.W Ga lltry. Photograph byAdii", Rtuh.bb: Then cnnc s "read" blackness a s signif}' inS confronn ti on . I thinkyour work is counrerhegemonic in that it disrurbs-c- Ie challenges andcomes rs convenn orm perception. Conr esradcn is differen t from confrontation. I think what people wunr, in a sense. IS to see the work as confront lnB race. because whiteness and whit e viewers are cent ralized as theprimary audience for the work. Thinking of the work as being abou t con-testation. however. mvires any viewer to work with a part icular image


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AIT ON ~ ),(I ND

and place rhemselves in relation sh ip ro the image. In [h is light , myfavorite piece in the Ai"'tl u i ,,series is rhe Ali ,.,.",., Alimwpiece: that piecechallenges me to inrerrogaeemy not ions ofbeau ry, to situate myself.C/\ I \V: Righ t. For th e most pan, th ere have been on ly white cr ir icswho 've been talking abou t th e work . And they talk about t he works ofblack artis rs, in ge neral. in ways th at cemralize race , see ing on ly thisfacer.hh: Well , tWO issues arise here. There is the work made by the black art istand the response to the black image. That response is shaped by rhe politics of locat ion- the Standpoint from which we look . I JUSt wrore a piecefor Deborah Willis's new col lecd on of essa ys on photography, PicturingUJ : AjrirdN Amtrira'i Idtmt;t),and Photography . One of the th ings that Iwrote about was howphotography has been so cenrret ro African-Ameri_cans. Nooerbeless, more than an )' other art istic pracrice. ir has bee n thernosr accessible, the mose present in our lives. I wrore about the sigatf i-ceocecf snapshots. abou t the ways they enable us to [race and reconstructa cultural genealogy through th e image . Thi s cri t ical engagement withimages has been consisrene in black life, but so linle has been wri ttenabout it . If the only cr it ical writ ing about the work of blad: photographers looks at the work in a manner that sees it on ly through the lens ofacolonizing gaze, then the universal. metaphysical d imension of that workwill never be discussed.Ci\l\fI; Yes. Yes./;h: You koow, when I look at the Kllrhtn ' fablt series what immediatelysurfaces is a visceral connect ion wuh a heterosexual com'ergence of pleasure and danger. of powe r and desire. Yes. the indiv iduals are black. burthe issues raised are about sexuali ry in general, the politics ofdesi reintimacy and dom ination.CM \V: H istorically. it 's been abso lutely impossibl e: for the vast majorityofcritics, ofwhite audiences. and even of black audie nces [0 come ro thework and not first lind Ioremosr fixare on ly on the b lackness of theimages. As soon as blackness becomes [he all- impo rtant sig n. audiences


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assume that tilt" imagesare addressing victimization . \'Qhat is the level ofvictimization that we're looking at ? Black people come to it in a differentway, but posing the samequestion.They might be able to jump past this,or leapfrog past that qu ickly. but it's still the same issue. It's the issue fore'Ier)'one. because we so rarely see black subjects, right?bh: Most of your earlier work that isoften seen asdocumemary phorogm-phy isn't about victimization at all.

M: That 's exactly why there has to be a challenge to crit ics to come back10 th is early work and reconsider ways of seeing and writ ing abou t it . In:III spheres of cultural production , work by black :lrt ists rattly receivessophisticated critical arrenricn from the outset . For example , much of thee:a rlycritical writing about Ton i Morrison's work was terrible. All t'OOoften, black arrisrs must reach a certain prominence befo re the crit icalwrit ing about their work Stops being shallowand superf icial.CM\fI: The assumption that our abil ity as anises is restricted. to our onlybemg ab le to de al mean ingfully with the qceseion of race and rageoverderermines crit ical perception. For insta nce, Iwas at agallery about ayear ago. and a white woman was there looking at someof my new pieces,which she boug ht, Some of the. A in ' ,)oJi" pieces and earlier works werepulled for her. I W2S someplace in the bu ilding , checking Ou t some othershit , and g irlfriend walks in, she looks at the work, [he Sia lsIanm piece,She looks at the work. and finally she asks if she can be introduced to me,They bring me over. She walks over to me, she says, "Is the work angr y?But thiswork is not making me feel guilty." She wants me to tell her howto respond to the work because she assumes tha t the only legitimateresponse is guilt in the face of perceived r.lge,Db: The ome r, but no less lim ited , way of viewing you r work is to seeI I as many audiences. particularly whire folks, do, as erbnog rophic docu-meneacion .


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s o ...RT O N MYM INn

bh: That 's still a way of denying rhe complex cultu ral land scape pre.semed by the images.CAlW: To see rhe work as ethnog raphicdeflects away from the serious.ness and makes it mostl y ente rtaining.bb: In much of your work, you cent ralize black subject ivity in ways thatdo nor allow whiteness ro rewrite itself using the black face as though it'sanother front ier, another blank page, which whiteness can conquer andconsume. The risk that you take by breaking a certain photog raphicsilence is that your interest, your arti stic concerns, will be overshadowedby simplist ic, superficial responses to th e work . Art ist ic work th at iscounrerhegemonic always risks cooptation by critical practices that deny,that don 't see the radical impl icat ions of a part icu lar standpoint. Doesdocumentary pborograph v make these concerns more explicit ?CAlW; Documentary as a genre has been very,very interest ing to me, andthere are aspects about it that I've always been inte rested in . I starred outveryearly working in that terrain and spenr a lor of time in a varietyof placesphotog raphing in the tradition of Carrier-Bresson. Early on, my artisticpract ices wen-shaped by thosetraditions that said: This ishowa photographis made. Theseare the elements of a 8000 photog raph. This is the way theshies supposed to b e printed. Then you knew that you wert working in thatmode, And I tr ied that . I worked with it and therewas something appea lingabout it, the whole idea that you were somehow describing the complicatednessof the human cond it ion. That's what dccumenrary was,or certainly wasto me. I think a parr of documentary had a lot to do with the notion that youwould go inro somebody else's backyard and capture it and bring home theethnic image, as trophy, but, hopefully, once you have captured the ethnicimage. in the processof capt uring it , you've gone through some harrowing.lifetr-.ansforming expe rience - like Eugene Smith, who was beaten inHarlem,or Cartier- Bresson, who was shot in Zimbabwe. In your passion COdocumen t you encounter a tragic reality that t ransforms, so that you cancome back even bigger. with your prize, and be praised for that . Well, Istarred to really understand what documentary was,what it really was, and Iunderstood It even more later. However, when I sta rred to unde rstand it ,when l learned that the terrain that I wanted to walk on couldn't be carried


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Alison Saar. Sapphirr_ 1986.


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Alison Saar. D/Ia . 1988.


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J'" :a &Ski

----.- 'FQNY 0 I: ' ..,NtiJ R't> j)\..


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l- mma Amos. Lucas 'Drram. 1994.


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Emma Amos. Mrs. Gauglns Shirt. 1994.


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EmmaAmos. Malro lmX. Morlty. t i & Me. 1993.


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Emma Amos. X Flag. 1993.


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TA LK IN C tl RT W J C ARR IE MAE WE EMS 8 1forth by srraighedocumentary, my attention shifted. There was someth ingdifferent that I wanted ro explore, work that had the appearance of documentary bur was not at all documentary. lt washighly fabricated work.bh: Absolutely. Your work engages a process of defamil ianza rion . Yourake a familiar image, a familia r frame, and through a series of d isplacernenrs challenge us to set ' it in a new way.Ci\l \V: Righ t, right.Ph: I see your work as profoundly informed by the polit ics of di splacement, where the colonizing gaze has to shift itself. It is th is demand thatmakes rhe work counrerbegerooo!c. It calls us to interrogate received perceptions. And it is not merely white people who look at the black imagewith the colonizing gaze. We have all been taught to look at black imageswith a colonizing eye.C,\I\lr' Exactly, though it is often black folks, and other nonwh ite viewers. who are mosr eager ro shift their gaze -e- re make rhe leap and see withnew eyes.bIJ: Few cri t ics place your work with in the d iscou rse about identity,nationality. or posecolonialiry, Black artists and crit ical think ers in Australia, aboriginal people. are rejecring the term /HJurokn;a!ity, using ami-reknnalism. This is a useful way to frame d iscussions of your work . Theimages you create are a form of resisrance. Those persons who are mostlikely to be vicrirnized by the imposition of a colonizing gaze can reachinto YOUt work and find the streng th that is there. I remember that whenI walked into a museum and saw and 22 l\IilliQn Very Tir edandVery AngryPtoplt . what srruck me was the way you used familiar tropes in this allu ring, poet ic yet profound ly polit ical way. It was SOamazing . {Carrielaugh;]Walking into that exhibit was almost like en tering a Buddh ist temple.('11m and compassion-surrounded . The work art iculated our experienceasexiles in the di aspora, for one thin g . in its wandering . Such border-crossing work, combining the idea ofGramsci with Stua rt Hall. There is noone-dimensional construct ion of blackness or of revolution I I I the work .Instead, it problemart zes the whol e notion of turning . of what we are


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8 2 ",aT o x WY MIN I>

turning toward, And yt:t )'00 are constantly insisting rhar we cannor simply assume that what we are turning toward is-CM \f!: - is ben er than what you're tu rning :twa} from .bh: Absolutely. {CarTirlaMghs) This is the power in the work tha t I thinkhas ro be called OUt more by crit ics.CM\V: I've been thinking abou t waysofforcing the issues. when it comesto the way in which the work gets ralked about in the world, You know, Ifeel I can't sit back anymoreand JUSt allow people ro do whatever the fuckthey want ro do around the work, particularly when it becomes tru lyd isinformation ,bb: Also, Carrie. I th ink of )OIJ as a cultural crit ic, a theoret ical peer.When I hear you talk about the work. you do so with a level oftheoret ica.lsophistication. NOtall artists can talk about their work, placing it withintheoret ical frameworks- n o t everyone has that skill. At t imes the playfulness in the work may lead audiences to overlook its extreme seriousness, \'(Ti t and serious deconstruction go together. "In-your-face"conresraricn is an aspect of sati re. irony. Ir ain't JUSt funny for the sake ofmaki ng folks laugh. It 's saying something abou t the multi ple ways tha twe approach a subject. I JUS t finished writing about the lain'tJ u i . pieces,the image of the black man in the window.CAlw: It's called What arTrhm things ) 'OIJ can't git't a b!a(k man?bh: You have a tension within the pita irself On ant: hand you have theconst ruct ion of a bl ack pe tson, and yet you also give us rhe image of .eype ofblsck male body rhar we rarely see represented in this cu lture,CM U'!: Very rarely, That 's right. That 's right.bh: And what is this image doing ?CAl \V: For me the vast majority of the Ain 'tJokin series is constructedin tha t way- s o there will always be thi s kind of tension between what


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TI'ILKl lI.Il..o I'IRT W ITI I CI'I RRH MA E "" f loWS iI \yOU see with in rhe photograph and what you set benea th it . wi rh thetext always curri ng th rough . Hopefully, then . for the viewer. therewould be a cu riou s pull berween what you see and the way th is subjecthas been flipped and underm ined by rhe power of humor. of the racist joke.For the most part . I think rhar t hat works. For example. jf you look at theimage of three baboons which I show in a photog raph- y o u set' a fabulouspiece, a go rgeous photograph. rig ht ? And th en you have a context; Wewould have that lip on our wall and we would say, "That that 's a beuuufu lblack family," right ? Th e mom ent this descnpeion is made of th reebaboons. and that assertion is made by the rext and the language thatdescribes who they are , then something else is a iled in to q uest ion in avery, very, very good way.Vb: In his essay "Reflect ions on Exile," Edward Said ralksabout conti n-gency and what it means to be in a contingent world . Well . pan ofwhatit means to be in a cont ingent world i t hat meaning is constantl y beingreworked-that images will not always have the same meaning . Andsomt' images won 't al ways work : ea rlier, we talked about the way theblack arrisrs are "blamed" if there are image s that don 't work.C,U \V: . . . don 't work , or fail.bb: Where the very nature of art istic practice is rooted in a phi losophy ofrisk , the fact that rbere are sometimes image s which do not work is partof t he process.CMU' ': That 's right . That's rig ht .bh: In fact , let's say there are t imes when black people . ind ividual blackpeop le. have seen those images and have felt crushed or humilia ted bythem , Is that a failu re of (ht: work, or is it simp ly that . beca use ofcont in-gency. because ofci rcumscance, how Ibtysee what they see hurrs?eM \fl; That's rig ht. It could be both.f;h: Absolutely. Th is possibi lity of l2ilure is pan of a deconserucnve ele-ment in you r work. in ehe sense tha t much phocography does nor require


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il-4 " IT ON MY IINOpeople to think about audie nce while your work doe s. And that 's pan ofirs genius and power. Somuch photography does n't lead peopl e to thi nkdeeply abou r rhe work, to interroga te it . And the value of most prorninen r whire pho tog raphers is not determined by audience response totheir work. Yet folks will tell me, "Well, I'm rroubled by Carrie Mae\Xfeems's work, because it doe sn't work with the aud ience." The assump-.t ion is char there is one correcc response, rather than multiple responses.eAfU'!; Which is much mort' ofwhat I'm interested in at this poim .bh: Absolutely. But that 's also the fundamental crit ical challenge in yourwork to contemporary noooos of the subject. I mean, there 'sa fundamental postmodern quali ty to your work that I th in k is often overlookedbecause the images are st ructured in a man lier that appears simple,srraig hcfcrward . In actuali ty, th e meanings of the images arc altered bythe rexr, Peop le may in itially assume that these imagesare familia r, evenethnographic, bur your useof text displaces,subverts. and changes meaning . For examp le. I was looking at th e Af ; rTfJ r. Af" Tl'r piece. asking,"Who's really looking?" Is it the white face gazing OU t at the black face?Is it really the hope on the part of millions of white women in Americawho have anxiety about their beau ty and their seductive powers, who arethe ones who actua lly need to look in that m irror and affirm the ir primacy-to a ffi rm that b lack women can never be more beautiful t hanth ey themselves are. Looking at th is p iece (rom diverse standpoint schanges its meani ngs. I've seen individual black women respond to it - Isee their d iscom fort . and J th ink, "God , parr of what th is piece does isremind us of the poliucs of location that is opera ting in al l our lives." lbepiece displace s that sense of fixed locat ion. because the meaning dependson the dtrecncn from which you gaze at the piece. It mirrors th e posrmodem emphasis on the fragmented sense of self.CIlI\V: After thinking about posrmodem ism and all th is stuff about fractured selves, and so on, when I was consrrucd ng the Kiuhm '/f,bh series,Laura Mulvey's article "Visual and Other Pleasures" came OU t , and everybody and their mama was using it . talking about the pol it ics of the gaze,and I kepe thinking of the gaps in her text , tile way In which she had considered black female subjects.


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TALK IN G A"T WIT II ( "' . . . . IE WAE W EEMS 8 )hh: That' s ~ c t l ) ' what I was thinking . though you and J didn 't knoweach orher at the t ime. Her piecewas the caralysr (or me ro wrire my pieceon black female spectators. art iculating theoret icall y exactly what youweredoi ng in the Kil(bm T ( J h l r s e r eM\V: All the pieces in theKirdNn TobIt series high light "the gaze." partlcula rly rbe piece where the woman is sin ing with a man leaning againsther. his head buried in her neck. a mirror placed direcrly in from of her,but she looks beyond that to the sub ject.hh: Go, gi rl.CM lV: At the audience. right?M: Hm -mmm . Yes.

CAllV: You know, JUSt using that as the begin ning and the turning poin tto Rip all that sh it around. and to start crea ti ng a space in which blackwomen art' looking back, righ t ?bb: Righ t ,CAl\("1: Looking back. and challenging all of those assumptions aboutgaze. and also questioning who is in fact looking . How much are whitewomen looking? How much are black men looking ?bh: Your work immediately challenges our sense of blackness.C" I \v.. os.yes.bh : Righ t now so much in pop ular culture defines blackness as blackurban experience. And. to some exrenr. I find your focus on the South 50powerful- its evocat ion of ou r concern with return . In so many waysyour work can be talked about as l inked to psychoanalysis. part icu larlythe issue of recogni tion and memory.eM \("; Oh sure. oh sure.


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'6 ,U T ON M Y MI/l


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T AL KI N G A a T " I T I I C" .... IE lol A W E U l S 111thing th at should jump out at people with that picture is that theseslavequarters are made of b rick- that this is ncr wood and tha t we have cothink of th e creati vity and express ive genius of these enslaved people.working with brick. The image invi tes us (0 ask. - \"'har do slaves andbrick have in common?" You know, J kept thinking about that in relation10the whole Afrocenrric focus now on ancient Egypt and kings and queensand the pyramids. And I also kept th ink ing abcce the slaves. I keep saying(0 people. l what about rhe slaves who were haul ing rhar brick?"You know, I mean rhere'ssorre rhtng else go ing on here besides simply thenarrat ive of kings and queens. And rhere's something in the work you' redoing around space and housing that speaks to culture and class- raisingquestions of how we inhabit space, abou t architecture.CAl \V: Well, how you inhabi t space and how you consuucr it. as well ashow you construct the architecture of your life, is the issue: How do youdo that ? What will it look like? And within this conrexr, let 's $:I.y the StaIsla"dJ image. with in this world . how will )'OU cons t ruct the s pa u youInhab it to make it work for you, even when it was not meant to?hb; It 's funny. because I was thinking of your work as I was readingBernard Tschurni's new book. which is the mosr exciting book I've readIarely: Arrhllrclllrt andV il j llnn Nrt , And I was think ing abou t how )'ou rphotographs inreracr with one another to create th is sense of d isjuncture,srerdng points where you don't end up where you St a r t off endpoin ts thatdon't come from this logical move from A to B to C.eM W' No , they're not , they 're not linear at all. The)' consrrucesometh ing that feels on the surface to be very linear, and. as you said, simple inthe ir construction.hh: Tensions arise when folks look at your work. especially your newimages that highl ight return ing to Africa, and they tell me they've talkedwith "real" Africans who don't set' :any thing par ticularly African" aboutthis work. And I remind them of how rrumy "real" Africans rhere are, If afew indi viduals don 't see something In a crea t ive work , does that meanrhis th ing doesn't exist? Are we st ill sruck within some kind o fWesrern ,metaphysical, ei ther/o r duulism , where we can recognize ou rselves in


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8 ART ON M Y M INI)

AfriCii only if African people gr.in t us that right ?This is nor about ownership . That 's exactl y what this work in irs rnovemenr , irs refu sal to befixed . is assert ing: that then: is no ownership ofblackness.CAl \V: Rig ht , and the thlOg that 's really ineeresring IS rhar the Ideas tha tground rhe work emerge from my crit ical reflections about stability andfrom ideas ofwholeness. You see. wholeness has all kinds c tfracrure in it .Ir has all kinds of ruptures in it. but it is a wholeness nonethe less. Forexample, the wholeness might be nor having a true and complete sense ofAfrica. Rather , we might have a sense of a const ruct ion of Africa. as seenthrough the eyes ofone person who is on some mythical journey in searchof a place she might be able to call home.bb: That sensib ility, wh ich is what we began talking about , is whatth is recent work evoke s. Th is is rhe spirit of exile- rea lI)" the emotionalpo li t ics of exile. When Cornel West and I were prepa ring our book,he spoke often of rhe exi lic na ture of black peop le, of why the O ldTesrarnenr has been so importcr u to black be lievers. Everythin g blackpeop le in America have seen or experienced has been filtered throughth at primal expe rience of exile, and that incl udes a long ing to re tu rn to"rhe promised land."CAllE' Only th(' promised land isn't there.1Jh: Ir's so mu lti faceted - there are many promised lands .Ci\l \V: That 's right . bu t it 's not chere.bh: It is a creario n. And it 's th e hi nt of that creanon that your workmoves us toward . What is that homeland that we journey toward? Is it ahomeland of rhe mind or of the emo rionality, in a sense, where one-where one's long ing is what ti es th ings toget her. And it 's lnreresring ,because I think this is th e subrexrual emot ional un iverse of you r workthat is often overlooked , overshadowed by the focus on race as irs cenrralmetaphor and not in faCt the emot ional uni verse. And yet it 's rhat erneti cnallandscape in your work that g ives it force and passion. The Kiu lN1tTablt series often makes me think of the blues. Like how a blues song may


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T"' L k I NG IIRT W IT " C.... RI E .wil E 'll7EU tS 89say somethi ng in words that you may not even like , you know, you rna}'neve r even ge t all t he words . bUI the sensibility is what takes }'OU somewhere. I was listening to one ofmy favorites. Muddy \'Vaters. and th ere'sthiS line where he says, " I've had my fun if ! don 't get well no more : ' AndI was sayi ng to somebod y that tha t is a deep ly mea n ingful song for ourt ime. as so mllllYd iseases such as cancer, AIDS, all rbese th ing s, reallydrsru peour expe rie nce of pleasu re. So now. here 's a song that we knowemergesout of It concrete specificity wi thin blackness and that shows thi scomplex emotiona l field of choice in relation to pleasure and dangerevoked in th is line: "I 've had my fu n if! don't get well no more." Yourwork has a sinlll:l. r brood scope.deeply embedded in our cultu re and idenlit } ', I disagree with one of t he crit ics who said th at you r work "rakes usbeycod abst ract idees ." I thought , actually, no, her work rakes us to theabstract complexity wirh in black idem it} th at has bee n de nied , and th:1fh:IS been denied not merely by po litics of ['.ICC bur by a polit ics of cultu re,and par t icul arl y that of vernacu lar cult ure in oppos it ion to high cult ure.In part as a response to high culture's attempt ro red uce vernacular cultu re. none writes about trn- place of vernacu lar culture In you r work, inthe images.CM \V: It 's not just vemecular culr ure-c--ir's class, The wor k is very. very,class-based, It ISworking class-based ; J t hin k th at realit y shapes th epic rures -c- cbe way the images are constr ucted , I'm very Inreresred inideas about blues and jazz, tha t expressive musical cu lt ure. That 's where1funcnon. That 's where Jget my shit from. my impulses Irom. H'us notin th ar , I'm generally not interes ted, rig hr! But how do you agai n uset ha t, how do you. }'OU know. listen to Muddy Waters. to Bessie and Billy.and begin to construct a visual world tha r rhu music is played in , that 'sgenerated by the cult ure tha t the mus ic crea tes. So in doin g the Kiu lN"

b / piece, it was always about how you constr uct it. How do you makea bl ues piece? What doe s th at look like ! And because of the emotionalresponse you're ta lking about , that emot ional Sl'nsibility is embedded inthe .....ork.bh: Like in my favorite piece. Jilll, I/YollCbJu,CtU\V: You understand what I'm saying!


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Ill) ,..aT ON MY /011 11010

hb: Absotcrely Jwrote abcur rhar photograph In rerms of the black malebodyspeaking abccr rhe sensibil ir)' underly.og rhar piece. I cou ldn' t find:I sing le person who had wr tueo abou t tech nolog y in relati on eo rh isimage . yet the reference that immediately came [0 my mind was "MissionImpossible.- If you th ink of while pa triarchy as rhe framework withinwhich black men are asked to cons truct an identity, and that th ere hasbee n a cap .rulaeion that black maleness has made 10 th at sys tem, th enyour subversive image says, "VIm have a choice. b lack man .CAl \V,. Th at 's right . Th at 's rigIn.bh: To resisl-ell l \r ': - this bullshir.bh: T hat gender cr isis you articula te with th is image is rhere in bl uesmusic, yet is nor ralked about. TIle kind ofmusic tha t SkipJ ames sings,"DevilGor My \'(foman ,- and that whole sense of the male who is caughtup in a politics of emot ional vul nerabi lit y. Now, what your piece says is"Hu! Aha, world, the emot iona l vulnerab il ity may not be of che b lackman in relat ion to the black woman. It may be of the black man in relat ion to the white n th e gaze, then , is reall y abo ut rhesc menlooking at one anothe r. I recently gave a paper called "Doiog It forDaddy: Represenn og Black Masculini ty as Unrequited Longi ng forWhite Male Love." And rbere we have it in du t portrait ofJ im, that senseof anguish. What is the anguish rhar he is feeling ? And also ebere's cbedo ub le t ragedy th at we can live in a world where someone can set ' thatimage and nor see rhar anguish, and only th ink of it as having somethingto do wir h black men and black women. Th at reduces the elegance andgma: of that image to the mundane.eMU"': It 's not jusr the imege rhar's reduced. te's out historical si tuat ion.bh: And your process as an image-make r changes too . Because in orderfor people to thi nk of th ese images d ifferently , rhey have to thi nk d ifferent ly about the people who make these images. We all have tore th ink and lake anot he r look to see that we are no longer talking


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TALt: INC, AaT W IT II Aaa lE .lol Alj W EENS 9 1about bla ck people in a stare of colonizat ion try ing to come ro someprimit ive subjectivity. We are tal king about image-makers like you rselfwho an: engaged in ongoing proce sses of decoloniaarion and reinvent ion of rhe self. whose work cannot be unde rstood deeply becausewe lack a critical lang uage to talk about COntempo rary radi ca l blacksubjectivity.

U You haveg iven us thi s crit ical language in your work . Wh y is it soimpossible for more critics to follow that examp le?bh: Well . I think (or man )' other writers there needs to be a demand (orcrit ical g rowth and change. a reposi tioning of the self in relarion rc the"orher " that only comes through the politics of demand . This is whatFrederick Douglass meant when he said. "Power concedes nothing withour demand."

( J\l U We have to challenge simp list ic. tradi t ional. fixed ncrions of whatcrit icism is and develop a new vocabulary and language. And unti l thathappens we will conti nue to have linle unders tandi ng of how ro epproechthe black subject . We certainI)' don't have any understand ing of how f Oralk about there being aesrbenc variation, whar rhnt might mean in rheconstruction of the phorog rsphic image.

/Jh: More folks who are theoret ical need to write more or ro speak anddocument that speaking , I think irs an unusual histor ical moment,because we usually presume that arrisrs and crirics are nor the same, butthese days there are ind ividua l amses who are able ro discuss work in acrirically aware manner. Mere and more artists will do more of what weconventional ly have thought of as rhe work of crit ics. and rhat anificialseparat ion 1T\3}' have to be completely and utterly disrupted .CMW: AI50, I think that something else has to happen,and I think that ,you know. a part of it has to do with rhe way in which we're educatedabout images. f r's as simple as this. be ll. I don't know how much youknow abou t photograph)' and var ious aspects of photography and thetechnical aspects of photography, bur we have something in photographythat 's called a zone system.


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....

9 1 " IT ON ....V MINDhh: Right . right.C/\l \V: ~ l the zone system is completely consrruc red around whatmakes wh itt' peop le look bes t . It IS our system and ou r rhec ry -c-- pbototheory- for cnderseanding what a good print is. and it 15 based on whiteskin . So the very base of photography and the w:I)' tha t photog raph) hasbeen developed in the \Vest as a science, because that 's wha t most of it is,is based on ideas ofwhiteness. What would have happen..-d, for instance,if photog raphy h:1(1been developed in J apan! Not just cameras, bur rhemeans of photography. had been developed in J apan? The images wouldlook very d ifferent , and what is theoret ically impossible or even pract ically acceptable wou ld be very. "ery d ifferent as well.

So in terms of art ists being crtucs , I th ink they art' no t necessari lyalways rbe same people. I'm nor a c r itic . You' re like a brilliant woman,a fabulous woman with rhu incredible sensibility. And rou use incredib le language and so fort h and you're a g if ted writer. I am not a g iftedwriter. I'm an art ist trying to figure OU t how to do this shit . So, thoughit 's rrue that I'm talking a whole lot , and actually I'm very good on myfeet when I' m up and talk ing . I want ro use my rime to make art nor to wri te. Yet I want 10 hear cr it ics talk about work in a way rharmakes sense.bh: Oh, I do ag ret'. \ 'V'hen I was do ing mort' an , I was not writ ing .eM U'; There just needs (Q be more cri t ical d iscuss ion of what we'redoi ng and what it is we are look ing at , because for the most part, not only

we com ing to black images made by black artis ts , but we're also coming to 2 d iffertnt kind of arrisuc and visual and ae srheric terrain rha r isjus t not understood.bh: We're looking (0 a furo re where there have 10 be more collaborat ions.There has to be more dialogue. And, let 's face it, there have to be alternat ive journals - spaces that don'r simply pi pe us all through the mai nSt ream, because d ifTerem ideas will not be welcomed rhere. If an is to betalked about d ifferentl y. arr isrs cannot rely on rradi rional frameworks ofimage making,or 0 11 insr irunonal frame works where image making istalked about.


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T ALK I N G ART wrru CA RR IE M AE WE f.M S 9 }CI\ I \V: Righr, and who was do ing the talking ? Righ t ? Who was doingrhe talking ?

bh: The exciting thing is that work like [he work you're doing makes thisdemand , It cont es ts in a way that means it will no longer allow for thekind of crit icism that has happened . You know, it 's a process. That 's whywe are talk ing now. I began as som eone who watched your work fromafar, bur who fele outs ide the loop of those crit ics who write about it.After we just talked , I though t , "No, I have to resist exclusion th roughom ission and lor disregard. and enter that loop of people who write andthink about Carr ie Mae Weems's works. " Collaborarions li ke th is dia -log ue will make a difference,CIlI\V: I'm excited when my work is talked about in a serious manner-nor becau se it 's t he work of Carrie Mae \'Qeems, bu t because I thinkthere's something that's important that 's going on In the work that needsto be talked about , finally, legi timatel y, thoroughly.bh : \'Qe have to create a kind of crit ical cultu re where we can discuss theissue of blackness in ways that confront not only the legacy of subjugationbut also radical traditions of resistance, as well as the newly invented self,the decolonized subject,

CAl \V: Yes, That is the cr itical issue for nowand for th e futu re.

TalkingArt_CarrieMaeWeems

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