Photography and Carrie Mae Weem

What do you see? by Aida Deleg

Ain't Jokin', 1987-1988 (Series) by Carrie Mae Weems

"Photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire."

" Images which idealize (like most fashion and animal photography) are no less aggressive than work which makes a virtue of plainness (like class pictures, still lifes of the bleaker sort, and mug shots). There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera."

-Quotes from On Photography by Susan Sontag 

Reaction: Photographs gave a visual image to memories that were usually remembered as smells, sensations and shadows. Unless you are of the percentage that remembers in great detail then photos probably just provide a little clarity. In the excerpt the writer says that there is aggression behind the use of the camera which is an interesting statement. Since there are occasions where a camera is shoved in front of your face. Overall, I agree that the camera captures a small part of a past experience since what is pointed at with the lens is what gets printed.

"Weems’s black-and-white photographs are like mirrors, each reflecting a collective experience: how selfhood shifts through passage of time; the sudden distance between people, both passable and impassable; the roles that women accumulate and oscillate between; how life emanates from the small space we occupy in the world."

"Though the entirety of “The Kitchen Table Series” is in the permanent collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts, it is most often seen in parts, through individual scenes and rarely with its accompanying text:..."

-Quotes from Revisiting Carrie Mae Weems’s Landmark “Kitchen Table Series” by Jacqui Palumbo

Reaction: When the series is explained it seems like an old frame by frame movie in black and white. No words needed just seeing the images and the viewer can have an understanding of what the artist wanted to express. I did also like how the artist later on added text to give it more of a written narrative. The series gave a interesting view to daily life and most people can recall a memory similar to the images.