Carrie Mae Weems H’17 (Photo by Jerry Klineberg)

“Carrie Mae Weems’ commitment to telling the American story has secured her place among the greatest artists of our time,” says Chancellor Kent Syverud. “This extraordinary honor is a testament to her prolific and powerful work that has profoundly impacted the artistic community, contributed to cultural awareness and inspired change. ���ϲ����� is fortunate and proud to have such an accomplished artist as part of our community.”

The National Medal of Arts is the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the United States government. The medal is awarded by the president of the United States to individuals or groups who “are deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts in the United States.”

“As the first African American female visual artist to receive the National Medal of Arts in recognition for my contributions is profoundly humbling and a great honor,” says Weems. “I thank my colleagues, along with the many other great women artists of color who came before me, widened the path and took the heat, but unfortunately were not recognized for their tremendous achievements.”

Weems’ four decades of work, including groundbreaking and distinctive compositions of photography, text, audio, installation, video and performance art, depicts topics of race, gender, social injustice and economic inequity throughout American history to the present day.

She is the first African American woman to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, and she is represented in public and private collections around the world, including the Brooklyn Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art; Tate Modern; Whitney Museum of American Art; National Gallery of Canada; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

In April, Weems reviewed the work of College of Visual and Performing Arts students in the studio arts program at the University’s Daniel and Gayle D’Aniello ���ϲ����� Program in Florence (Photo by Francesco Guazzelli)

Weems is a 2023 Hasselblad Award laureate and has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships, including the , the U.S. Department of State’s Medal of Arts, the Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize Fellowship, the National Endowment of the Arts fellowship and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award.

In April, Weems participated in the conference, organized in concert with the , and reviewed the work of College of Visual and Performing Arts students in the studio arts program at the University’s Daniel and Gayle D’Aniello ���ϲ����� Program in Florence.

Her solo exhibition, “The Shape of Things,” is currently running at the in New York City through Nov. 9.

As the University’s artist in residence, Weems engages with ���ϲ����� faculty and students in a number of ways, including working with students in the design, planning and preparation of exhibitions.

Candace Campbell Jackson, senior vice president and chief of staff, who co-created the Artist in Residence program with Academic Affairs leadership, says, “This well-deserved honor recognizes Carrie Mae Weems’ incredible cultural contributions as a groundbreaking and visionary artist. It also reminds us once again how proud we are to call her our artist in residence. Carrie’s longstanding connection with the University has been a source of inspiration to the arts on campus here and abroad and resulted in numerous one-of-a-kind opportunities for our students.”

Weems first came to ���ϲ����� in 1988 to participate in Light Work’s artist-in-residence program. Over the years, she has participated in several programs at Light Work and has a long history of engaging with students and the University community.

Weems taught at ���ϲ����� previously, and out of her two courses Art in Civic Engagement and Art and Social Dialogue came the innovative and popular . She previously was artist-in-residence in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (2005-06) and she was a distinguished guest of the University Lectures in 2014.

Weems also was bestowed an honorary doctorate by the University in 2017 (along with honorary degrees from Bowdoin College, the California College of Art, Colgate University, the New York School of Visual Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art and Smith College).

Weems, an internationally renowned artist, will travel to Florence to deliver a public lecture, “Resistance as an Act of Love,” April 17. While there, she will review the work of students in the studio arts program.

Carrie Mae Weems (Photo by Jerry Klineberg)

The students will also attend the conference in Venice April 20 and 21. Weems and Florence faculty member will participate in the conference, which is co-sponsored by ���ϲ�����. Weems will be a panelist for the discussion “Black Realities through Digital Media,” and Nelson will serve on the “Radical Curricula” panel.

Students traveling to the conference include studio arts majors Anastasia Cardona, Sidney Hanson (a dual art history major in the College of Arts and Sciences) and Rumini Nguyen; computer art and animation major Mark Casadevall; and illustration majors Madeleine Herberger, Sarah Mednick, Sarah Skalski and Alissar Youssef.

Black Portraitures, now in its 14^th year, is organized in concert with the . This year’s theme “Shifting Paradigms,” brings together thought leaders in the arts from Africa and the African Diaspora. Founder Deborah Willis says the convening “will explore and expand narratives on memoir and memory studies; migration stories through family and politics; and reimagine ideas about art practices and the exhibition experience, all while considering new research practices.”

Carrie Mae Weems (Photo by Jerry Klineberg)

���ϲ����� Artist in Residence H’17 has joined the where a solo exhibition of her work will be held in Fall 2024.

Weems’ four decades of work, including groundbreaking and distinctive compositions of photography, text, audio, installation, video and performance art, depicts topics of race, gender, social injustice and economic inequity throughout American history to the present day.

Weems is the first African American woman to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. She is represented in public and private collections around the world, including the Brooklyn Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art; Tate Modern; Whitney Museum of American Art; National Gallery of Canada; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Weems is a 2023 Hasselblad Award laureate and has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships, including the , the U.S. Department of State’s Medal of Arts, the Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize Fellowship, the National Endowment of the Arts fellowship and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award.

Carrie Mae Weems, center, at the opening of her show at the Barbican Art Gallery in London (Photo courtesy of the Goodman Gallery)

Widely considered to be one of the most influential American artists working today, Weems is celebrated for her exploration of identity, power, desire and social justice through work that challenges representations of race, gender and class. Through her intimate and thought-provoking images, Weems challenges societal norms, reclaims narratives and encourages views to critically examine their own assumptions and biases.

This presentation of Weems’ multidisciplinary work captures the performative and cinematic nature of her practice through photographs, films and installations, from the iconic “Kitchen Table Series” (1990) to “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried” (1995-96), focused on systemic racism, to the incisive film installation “The Shape of Things” (2021), calling out the “pageantry” of contemporary American politics.

The Evening Standard calls the exhibition “breathtaking” and “a transcendent show from an artist who has delivered for 30 years.”

“My responsibility as an artist is to work, to sing for my supper, to make art, beautiful and powerful, that adds and reveals, to beautify the mess of a messy world,” Weems told Dazed. The exhibition’s co-curator, Raúl Muñoz de la Vega, added, “Beauty and elegance is a key formal aspect of saying her work. In order to lure you to enter a very difficult conversation, she does it with the trick of beauty.”

The exhibition is accompanied by “Carrie Mae Weems: Reflections for Now,” the first publication devoted to her writings. It will highlight Weems’ influence as an intellectual, reflecting the dual nature of her career as an artist and an activist.

Carrie Mae Weems, right, greeting guests at the Barbican Art Gallery in London. (Photo courtesy of the Goodman Gallery)

2023 has been a busy year for Weems. She was the guest of honor at the 12th Annual Brooklyn Artists Ball, presented by Dior, on April 25 at the Brooklyn Museum. She was honored for her “innumerable contributions as both a trailblazing artist and a community-focused activist.” An exhibition featuring “The Shape of Things” opened at the Luma in Arles, France, in May.

Together, with the Barbican exhibition, “Perhaps we’ll finally get the message on this side of the pond, too, that Carrie Mae Weems deserves our fullest attention,” wrote Caroline Roux in the Financial Times.

On Aug. 15, a video presentation and talk with Weems on her work “Leave, Leave Now” will be held at the Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts (Martha’s Vineyard). The event is presented by the University’s Office of Multicultural Advancement and the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard.

Earlier this year, Weems was named a 2023 Hasselblad Award laureate by the , a prize that is often referred to as the Nobel Prize of photography. An award ceremony will take place on Oct. 13 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

���� (a.k.a. “Genius Grant”) recipient and the first African American woman to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, Weems has used multiple mediums (photography, video, digital imagery, text, fabric and more) throughout her career to examine themes of cultural identity, sexism, class, political systems, family relationships and the consequences of power.

Weems has created a complex body of work that centers on her overarching commitment to helping us better understand our present moment by examining our collective past. Determined as ever to enter the picture—both literally and metaphorically—Weems has sustained an ongoing dialogue within contemporary discourse for over 35 years.

As artist in residence at ���ϲ�����, Weems engages with faculty and students in a number of ways, including working with students in the design, planning and preparation of exhibitions. The artist in residence program is overseen by the .

Weems first came to ���ϲ����� in 1988 to participate in Light Work’s artist-in-residence program. Over the years, she has participated in several programs at and has a long history of engaging with students and the University community.

She has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships, including the MacArthur Fellowship, U.S. Department of State’s Medal of Arts, Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, National Endowment of the Arts fellowship and Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, among many others.

Weems is represented in public and private collections around the world, including the Brooklyn Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Whitney Museum of American Art; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Weems has been represented by Jack Shainman Gallery since 2008.

More than 650 guests from the art world and beyond gathered to celebrate Weems at the event, which is the Brooklyn Museum’s largest fundraiser. This year, a record $2.8 million was raised to support the museum’s programming, including special exhibitions, reimagined collection installations and educational programs.

Carrie Mae Weems, second from right, and guests at the Brooklyn Artists Ball, presented by Dior. (Credit: BFA, Joe Schildhorn, Ben Rosser)

“We are overjoyed to be honoring Carrie Mae Weems, an artist who has made a profound impact on our contemporary culture,” said Anne Pasternak, the Shelby White and Leon Levy Director of the Brooklyn Museum, in a news release prior to the event. “Over the years, the museum has collaborated with Weems in numerous ways—from mounting exhibitions to supporting her important COVID-19 relief efforts—and we’re thrilled to highlight her remarkable achievements at this year’s Artists Ball.”

In her remarks to guests that evening, Pasternak said, “Faced with a world shaken by inequality, division and crisis, [Weems] sought to change our field, and invited hundreds of artists to join her in magnifying the potential for cultural and social change.”

“Almost 20 years ago, I began photographing myself standing in front of museums, wondering about their function, failures and future, and remembering the forgotten ones,” Weems says. “Museums are meant to collect, serve, preserve, reveal and educate; the best of them open their arms in welcome providing respite, deep reflection and consideration. The least of them close us out and seem to exist to remind us of the power of privilege.”

“I have stood outside many museums and other cultural institutions—wondering how to get in,” she says. “Then one day, someone who understood the limits of power, and the winds of change, heard me knocking and led me in.”

The event’s creative art advisor, Brooklyn Museum trustee and artist Mickalene Thomas, worked with Dior to select table settings and décor inspired by Weems’ series “Slow Fade to Black” (2010), which highlights Black women in popular culture.

In celebration of the evening, Weems’ immersive video installation “Leave! Leave Now!” (2022) will enter the museum’s collection. The artwork is currently on view in the museum’s exhibition “A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration.”

���� (a.k.a. “Genius” grant) recipient and the first African American woman to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, Weems has used multiple mediums (photography, video, digital imagery, text, fabric and more) throughout her career to explore themes of cultural identity, sexism, class, political systems, family relationships and the consequences of power.

Weems has created a complex body of work that centers on her overarching commitment to helping us better understand our present moment by examining our collective past. Determined as ever to enter the picture—both literally and metaphorically—Weems has sustained an ongoing dialogue within contemporary discourse for over 35 years.

In 2019, in Weems’ first solo exhibition in Toronto, Canada, curator Sarah Robayo Sheridan wrote of her work, “With a sensibility honed to the rhythms and workings of power, Weems points to a tidal pull of oppressions, inextricably linked, recurrent and indelible.”

Weems was recently named a 2023 Hasselblad Award laureate by the , a prize that is often referred to as the “Nobel Prize” of photography. An award ceremony will take place on Oct. 13 in Gotherburg, Sweden.

As artist in residence at ���ϲ�����, Weems engages with faculty and students in a number of ways, including working with students in the design, planning and preparation of exhibitions. The artist in residence program is overseen by the Office of Academic Affairs.

The table settings and décor for the evening were inspired by Weems’ series “Slow Fade to Black” (2010), which highlights Black women in popular culture. (Credit: BFA, Joe Schildhorn, Ben Rosser)

Weems first came to ���ϲ����� in 1988 to participate in Light Work’s artist-in-residence program. Over the years, she has participated in several programs at Light Work and has a long history of engaging with students and the University community.

She taught at ���ϲ����� previously, and out of her two courses Art in Civic Engagement and Art and Social Dialogue came the innovative and popular . She previously was artist-in-residence in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (2005-06) and she was a distinguished guest of the University Lectures in 2014.

In 2018, the ���ϲ����� Art Galleries (now ���ϲ����� Art Museum) acquired three significant works by Weems through a generous gift from alumnus Richard L. Menschel ’55 and the artist: “People of a Darker Hue” (2016), a 15-minute video, and “All the Boys (Blocked 1)” and “All the Boys (Blocked 2)” (2016), archival photographic prints with screenprint.

Recently, through her nonprofit organization, Social Studies 101, Weems created RESIST COVID/TAKE 6!, a public-art campaign that addresses the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black, Latino and Indigenous communities, which has been activated by museums across the nation and abroad. In July 2020, she was honored by the City of ���ϲ����� for the project.

Weems has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at major national and
international museums, including the Brooklyn Museum, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Frist Art Museum, Nashville; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain.

She has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships, including the MacArthur Fellowship, U.S. State Department’s Medals of Arts, Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, National Endowment of the Arts fellowship and Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, among many others.

Weems is represented in public and private collections around the world, including the Brooklyn Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Whitney Museum of American Art; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Weems has been represented by Jack Shainman Gallery since 2008.

She was bestowed an honorary doctorate by the University in 2017 (along with honorary degrees from Bowdoin College, the California College of Art, Colgate University, the New York School of Visual Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art and Smith College).

Weems earned a B.F.A. degree at the California Institute of the Arts and an M.F.A. degree at the University of California, San Diego, and studied in the Graduate Program in Folklore at the University of California, Berkeley.

Carrie Mae Weems © Rolex/Audoin Desforges

“���ϲ����� is proud to have Carrie Mae Weems, one of the most prolific, influential and intriguing artists of our time, as a member of our community,” says Chancellor Kent Syverud. “She has a way of challenging cultural norms and shedding light on injustices that push us to question our own perspectives and beliefs. Her contributions to the world of art, and on communities and our broader society are extraordinary. On behalf of ���ϲ�����, I extend my deepest congratulations on this once-in-a-lifetime achievement.”

The Hasselblad Award is an international photography prize that is granted annually to a photographer recognized for major achievements. It was presented for the first time in 1980 to Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson. The award includes a monetary prize of SEK 2,000,000 (about $188,000) and gold medal. The award also includes a medium format Hasselblad camera from the Gothenburg-based camera company Hasselblad.

An award ceremony will take place on Oct. 13 in Gotherburg, Sweden. That same day, an exhibition of Weems’ work will open at the Hasselblad Center and a new publication about Weems will be released.

“Carrie Mae Weems’s work has for decades anticipated salient issues of our time—the struggle for racial equality and human rights—with unflinching visual and ethical force. Her artistic practice is inherently activist, poignant and lyrical. She creates evocative, potent tableaux and confronts painful histories, institutional power and social discriminations,” the Hasselblad Foundation said in a statement. “At the core of Weems’s wide-ranging oeuvre is the still photograph, but she also deftly employs video, text, immersive multimedia installations and performance. She often inserts herself in her work, thus embodying and commemorating the Black female subject.”

“The Shape of Things” Installation View, 2021. ©Dan Bradica. Courtesy of Carrie Mae Weems and Jack Shainman Gallery

“In the midst of the radical shifts taking place across cultural institutions, and as the first African American woman to receive the Hasselblad Award, some might say, ‘it’s about time!’ Nevertheless, receiving the Hasselblad Award has left me speechless. I don’t have the words to express the depth of my gratitude. To have my family name inscribed on this historic roster, alongside some of the most outstanding photographers of our time, is a cherished honor,” Weems says. “To be recognized comes with the continued responsibility to deliver on the promise made to myself and to the field, which is to shine a light into the darker corners of our time and thereby, with a sense of grace and humility, illuminate a path forward.  For this honor, I thank the Hasselblad Foundation and the jury.”

���� (a.k.a. “Genius” grant) recipient and the first African American woman to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, Weems has used multiple mediums (photography, video, digital imagery, text, fabric and more) throughout her career to explore themes of cultural identity, sexism, class, political systems, family relationships and the consequences of power.

“Untitled (Colored People Grid),” 2019. ©Silver Street Studios. Courtesy of Carrie Mae Weems and Jack Shainman Gallery

As artist in residence, Weems engages with ���ϲ����� faculty and students in a number of ways, including working with students in the design, planning and preparation of exhibitions. The artist in residence program is overseen by the Office of Academic Affairs.

Weems first came to ���ϲ����� in 1988 to participate in Light Work’s artist-in-residence program. Over the years, she has participated in several programs at Light Work and has a long history of engaging with students and the University community.

Weems taught at ���ϲ����� previously, and out of her two courses Art in Civic Engagement and Art and Social Dialogue came the innovative and popular . She previously was artist-in-residence in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (2005-06) and she was a distinguished guest of the University Lectures in 2014.

Weems also was bestowed an honorary doctorate by the University in 2017 (along with honorary degrees from Bowdoin College, the California College of Art, Colgate University, the New York School of Visual Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art and Smith College).

In July 2020, Weems was honored by the City of ���ϲ����� for “Resist COVID Take 6,” her project to raise public awareness about the impact of COVID-19 on people of color, promote preventative measures and dispel harmful falsehoods about the virus.

Through image and text, film, video, performance and her many lectures, presentations and culturally significant convenings with individuals across a multitude of disciplines, Weems has created a complex body of work that centers on her overarching commitment to helping us better understand our present moment by examining our collective past. Determined as ever to enter the picture—both literally and metaphorically—Weems has sustained an ongoing dialogue within contemporary discourse for more than 35 years.

“Untitled (Woman and Daughter with Makeup),” from the series The Kitchen Table, 1990. ©Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery.

Weems has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at major national and international museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Frist Center for Visual Art, Nashville; The Cleveland Museum of Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville, Spain. Most recently, Weems curated “What Could Have Been” in the Guggenheim Museum’s first-ever, artist-curated exhibition titled “Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection.”

One of her photographs, “The Shape of Things,” was the title piece in a 2016-17  in New York featuring works from the collection of alumnus Robert B. Menschel ’51, H’91.

She is represented in public and private collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

In total, seven publications of her work have been produced: “Kitchen Table Series” (2016), “Three Decades of Photography” (2012), “Social Studies” (2010), “Carrie Mae Weems: Constructing History” (2009), “The Hampton Project” (2000), “Carrie Mae Weems: Recent Work, 1992-1998” (1999) and “Carrie Mae Weems” (1994).

In addition to the MacArthur Fellowship, Weems has received numerous other fellowships, grants and awards, including the prestigious Prix de Roma, the Frida Kahlo Award for Innovative Creativity, the WEB DuBois Medal, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, the BET Honors Visual Artist Award, the Lucie Award for Fine Art Photography, the ICP Spotlights Award from the International Center of Photography, and she was named an honorary fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.

In 2012, Weems was awarded one of the U.S. Department of State’s first Medals of Arts in recognition of her commitment to the State Department’s Arts in Embassies program. In 2013, she received the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She was one of four artists honored at the Guggenheim’s 2014 International Gala.

In 2018, the ���ϲ����� Art Galleries (now ���ϲ����� Art Museum) acquired three significant works by Weems through a generous gift from alumnus Richard L. Menschel ’55 and the artist: “People of a Darker Hue” (2016)—a 15-minute video—and “All the Boys (Blocked 1)” and “All the Boys (Blocked 2)” (2016), archival photographic prints with screenprint.

Weems earned a B.F.A. degree at the California Institute of the Arts and an M.F.A. degree at the University of California, San Diego, and studied in the Graduate Program in Folklore at the University of California, Berkeley.

About ���ϲ�����

���ϲ����� is a private research university that advances knowledge across disciplines to drive breakthrough discoveries and breakout leadership. Our collection of 13 schools and colleges with over 200 customizable majors closes the gap between education and action, so students can take on the world. In and beyond the classroom, we connect people, perspectives and practices to solve interconnected challenges with interdisciplinary approaches. Together, we’re a powerful community that moves ideas, individuals and impact beyond what’s possible.

A group of distinguished speakers will speak on Weems’ presentation of “,” currently on view in MoMA’s second-floor contemporary galleries, and of the forthcoming “” anthology, edited by Sarah Lewis, associate professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture, Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, with Christine Garnier, 2020-22 Wyeth Predoctoral Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art.

A limited number of seats for this virtual webinar event have been reserved for ���ϲ�����. To request a seat, complete this . The forum will be by the general public on Feb. 8.

Carrie Mae Weems

The forum will open with “That’s When All Will See,” from “The Democracy! Suite by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra led by Wynton Marsalis.

The forum’s featured speakers will include Weems; Sarah Lewis; Carrie Lambert-Beatty, professor of history of art and architecture and of art, film and visual studies at Harvard University; Deborah Willis, University Professor and chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University; Agnes Gund, president emerita and life trustee of MoMA and chair of PS1’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee; Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem; Robin Kelsey, dean of arts and humanities and Shirley Carter Burden Professor of Photography in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University; Huey Copeland, BFC Presidential Associate Professor in the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania and Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the National Gallery of Art; Thomas J. Lax, curator, Department of Media and Performance at MoMA; Jennifer Blessing, senior curator of photography at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Kimberly Juanita Brown, associate professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College; and Richard J. Powell, John Spencer Bassett Distinguished Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University. The forum is co-organized by Lewis and Roxana Marcoci, senior curator at MoMA, and the Forums on Contemporary Photography are made possible through the generous support of the Joseph M. Cohen Family Collection.

“To be honored by one’s peers is the greatest honor of all,” says Weems. “I’m deeply moved and profoundly humbled by this recognition.”

Weems, who has been called one of the most influential visual artists of our time, began her three-year role as ���ϲ�����’s Artist in Residence on Feb. 1, 2020. A  (a.k.a. “Genius” grant) recipient and the first African American woman to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, Weems has used multiple mediums (photography, video, digital imagery, text, fabric and more) to explore themes of cultural identity, sexism, class, political systems, family relationships and the consequences of power.

Through image and text, film, video, performance and her many lectures, presentations and culturally significant convenings with individuals across a multitude of disciplines, Weems has created a complex body of work that centers on her overarching commitment to helping us better understand our present moment by examining our collective past. Weems has sustained an ongoing dialogue within contemporary discourse for more than 35 years.

Weems has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at major national and international museums, including MoMA, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Frist Center for Visual Art, Nashville; The Cleveland Museum of Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville, Spain.

She is represented in public and private collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; MoMA, New York; Tate Modern, London; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

In addition to the MacArthur Fellowship, Weems has received numerous other fellowships, grants and awards. In July 2020, Weems was recognized by ���ϲ����� Mayor Ben Walsh for her efforts to raise public awareness about the impact of COVID-19 on people of color, promote preventive measures and dispel falsehoods about the coronavirus through her “Resist COVID Take 6” campaign.