Carrie Mae Weems The Shape of Things

Carrie Mae Weems the Shape of Things

included 7 parts!

It was in fact partially a retrospective

The  first  installation at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City is a set of megaphones in the large space. this called “Seat or Stand and Speak” was an opportunity to sound off or not, as we began to think about our current times. Mostly people did not sound off.

The next stop was inside the blue cyclorama you see in the background: called Conditions,  A Video in 7 parts with original music by Jawwaad Taylor.

This image of performer and choreographer Okwui Okpokwasili sitting in a chair with papers falling like leaves around her begin the video. As Aruna D’Souza wrote in the New York Times: “Weems’s voice, with its deep, round tones, tells us that to navigate the now, “she needs to look back over the landscape of memory.”

 

Weems stated in the press release:

“I am fascinated by 19th century media, so for the Drill Hall I created a cyclorama that contains a new film that pits the rise of the right along with its puppeteers, clowns, jokers and two-faced speakers & spies, charlatans & prophets of fake news, conspiracy theorists against the emerging forces of progress. In this world, ‘normal’ is turned on its head and all bets are off.

 

“It is a time of murder, mayhem and mass protest and when covert operators of corruption bear their heads for all to see. My work centers on what happens when all facades are stripped away, and the people are left standing face to face with the realities of our time.”

 

 

The artist also narrates the film which is 40 minutes long. As Marley Marius put it in Vogue: ( I didn’t find this information anywhere)

“Weems mostly narrates these vignettes, employing her richly resonant speaking voice to discuss, among other things, the ubiquity of police brutality (“Imagine the impossible. Imagine the worst of the worst. And know that it is always happening”).”

 

Here is one still from the film of a black man walking, probably referring to the recent murder of Ahmaud Arbery, but it could be any black man. The recording of the woman who called the police in Central Park against a black man birding can be heard in the background of the two women seated in silhouette at the top of the post and here

Shadow puppets of slave owning women.

 

Another theme was migration, both in boats and on land.

 

   

 

and the border fence on our Southern border.

 

But there were images from the treacherous crossing of the Mediterranean. You can see it is footage from the news. In front is one of the seats where we watched the film, keeping in mind that we were completely surrounded by the images as in the 19th century Cyclorama.

 

The video also included some historic images of circus performers and a clown ( evidently referring to T, keeping in mind that clowns are smart people who pretend to be someone they are not)

The clown is blurry, but he was moving a lot, and it seems appropriate somehow that he is hard to see.

 

The January 6 riot was also included and below a reference to white racists from the earlier Civil Rights era or before.

There were people silently marching, with no signs. I wondered if they represent BLM marchers, although we all had signs, or is it a staged march representing protests against injustice everywhere. The artist photographed them in summer 2020

 

There was a lengthy segment of various people standing in the rain  I don’t know what they mean. Suggestions welcome. It has the title Conditions

As well as numerous silhouettes of people marching

Finally I give you this repeated image of three women holding up globes.

 

There were three more segments to the exhibition. Here is a  diagram of the whole piece to orient you. I have so far mentioned A and B

 

A long corridor (on right of diagram ) started with

C “Its Over – A Diorama, with memorials honoring some of those who have died. The theme of the globe reappears

 

A segment from earlier works

B Missing Links from 2004  various animals  such as zebra, elephant sheep and wolf, dressed up in fancy clothes, In the brochure an earlier version is called The Louisiana Project 2003

and E The Weight 2021, more globe/balloons on  African heads.

OK that’s three segments.

There are two more!

F was like a cabaret in a darkened room called Lincoln, Lonnie and Me 2014, it included the Gettysburg Address, in what the press release calls a Pepper’s ghost illusion with music by Jason Moran,

I like that my image looks like a ghost! Lonnie is Lonnie Graham an artist and activist.

This second image is from the press photos

Nearby in the darkened room were carnival promoters, another globe

and finally

G All blue, A Contemplative Site 2021

It was an old door at the top of some steps with a full moon. Here it is

 

and with me

 

I am trying to assimilate this incredible multipart installation. It is meditative, angry, hopeful, historical, contemporary, a compendium of images that together speak to our moment, our fragile moment in history. I am glad that Carrie Mae Weems seems to see the forces for good as stronger than those for evil. Or do we see a Civil War here that is still being fought?

 

In these dark days coming up to the anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, it is hard to believe in that, but if we all stay actively resisting evil in what ever small or large way that we can it will make a difference. Weems leaves us to figure that out for ourselves.