Carrie Mae Weems: "A History of Violence, Heave"

Through image and text, film, and performance, and her many convenings with individuals across a multitude of disciplines, Carrie Mae 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. In her artist talk, A History of Violence, Heave, Weems traces her own practice over the years as it has informed and engaged public discourse around issues of political and social structures intersecting with gender, class, and race.

Her video installation Lincoln, Lonnie, and Me, on view in Specters of Disruption, mingles varied narratives in ghostly apparition—from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address to the assassination of Robert Kennedy, civil rights protests to angry minstrel performers, to reflect on the “unfinished work” of dismantling systemic racism.