Mother with Children from the Boardwalk of Santa Monica, is a photograph from the early 1980s by acclaimed Portland artist Carrie Mae Weems (right).
Born and raised in Portland, Carrie Mae Weems is internationally recognized for her powerful photography-based art that investigates issues of race, gender, and societal class.
Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, presents more than 200 photographs, videos, and installations tracing the evolution of Weems’ career during a Black History Month exhibit which will be on display until May 19 at the Portland Art Museum,.
On her 21st birthday, Weems received a camera as a gift and quickly realized its potential to express abstract political and social theories and incite change. During the past 30 years, her work has explored a variety of issues, providing a complex picture of humanity and creating greater awareness and compassion for difference.
The exhibit features some of her most groundbreaking work, including Ain’t Jokin’, From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, Ritual and Revolution, and the recent series Constructing History: A Requiem to Mark the Moment.
This is not the first time that the Portland Art Museum has featured Weems’ photography. In 1994, the museum presented an early exhibition of the artist’s work. This earlier exhibition, Carrie Mae Weems, was organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
The current retrospective will engage audiences in discussions of the African-American experience through art.
