Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953)

When it debuted in 1990, the Kitchen Table Series established Carrie Mae Weems as one of the most important artistic voices of her generation. Consisting of twenty carefully staged photographs and fourteen accompanying text panels, the series depicts Weems herself as the protagonist in a moving sequence of scenes depicting love, motherhood, friendship and solitude. Each tableau is set at the subject’s kitchen table, a sparse setting that comes alive with manifold meaning and vitality in the artist’s masterful staging. The resulting photographs and texts speak truths about men, women and race, while simultaneously developing a character that is unforgettable in her visual strength and determination. Other examples from this edition are in the permanent Collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln and Centro Andaluz de Artes Contemporaneas (CAAC), Seville.