Carrie Mae Weems is an American artist born in 1953 in Portland, Oregon. She received degrees from the California Institute of the Arts and the University of California, San Diego and Berkeley. Using photography, video, and poetry, Weems explores issues of subjectivity and stereotypes through works that scrutinize social and racial issues while drawing from her own experiences to communicate broader truths.

1. CARRIE MAE
WEEMS

2. HER WORK

3. HER LIFE
• Carrie Mae Weems was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1953.
• Weems earned a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia (1981), and an MFA from the
University of California, San Diego (1984), continuing her studies in the Graduate Program in
Folklore at the University of California, Berkeley (1984–87).
• With the pitch and timbre of an accomplished storyteller, Weems uses colloquial forms—jokes, songs,
rebukes—in photographic series that scrutinize subjectivity and expose pernicious stereotypes.
Weems’s vibrant explorations of photography, video, and verse breathe new life into traditional
narrative forms: social documentary, tableaux, self-portrait, and oral history. Eliciting epic contexts
from individually framed moments, Weems debunks racist and sexist labels, examines the relationship
between power and aesthetics, and uses personal biography to articulate broader truths.

4. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLHzpH__-Rk
• http://www.bet.com/video/bethonors/2014/acceptance-speeches/carrie-mae-weems-visual-arts-
award.html