Weems recalled, 'I started dancing with the famous and extraordinary Anna Halprin. Later that year (1970), she moved out of her parents’ home and soon relocated to San Francisco to study modern dance with Anna Halprin at a workshop Halprin had started with several other dancers, as well as the artists John Cage and Robert Morris. At the age of 16, she gave birth to her only child, a daughter named Faith C. She began participating in dance and street theater in 1965. Weems was born in Portland, Oregon in 1953, the second of seven children to Carrie Polk and Myrlie Weems. Biography Early life and education (1953–1980) She is Artist in residence at Syracuse University. Weems is one of six artist-curators who made selections for Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection, at the Solomon R. She taught photography at Hampshire College in the late 1980s and shot the 'Kitchen Table' series in her home in Western Massachusetts.

Her talents have been recognized by Harvard University and Wellesley College, with fellowships, artist-in-residence and visiting professor positions. is the real point.' She continues to produce art that provides social commentary on the experiences of people of color, especially black women, in America. She once said, 'Let me say that my primary concern in art, as in politics, is with the status and place of Afro-Americans in the country.' More recently however, she expressed that 'Black experience is not really the main point rather, complex, dimensional, human experience and social inclusion. Her photographs, films and videos focus on serious issues facing African Americans today, including racism, sexism, politics and personal identity. She achieved prominence through her early 1990s photographic project The Kitchen Table Series. MacArthur Fellowship (2013), Anonymous Was a Woman Award (2007), Rome Prize Fellowship (2006), Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in Photography (2002), Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society (2019), Hasselblad Award 2023.Ĭarrie Mae Weems (born April 20, 1953) is an American artist working in text, fabric, audio, digital images and installation video, and is best known for her photography. University of California, San Diego ( MFA)

Weems kitchen table series