Carrie Mae Weems
I was just looking at BOMB’s website, aptly named BOMBSITE and came across an interview between two photographers - Carrie Mae Weems and Dawoud Bey, in which they discuss Weems’ work. In case you’re not familiar with BOMB, it’s a magazine that was started in 1981, covers art, literature, music, film, theatre, etc. and is dedicated to the conversation that occurs between artists (no critics allowed!).
(Carrie Mae Weems, 1976. Photo by Dawoud Bey - image from BOMBSITE)
Below is an excerpt from the interview:
DB I’m also thinking about the Studio Museum in Harlem and the way in which that institution looms very large in this conversation. It’s been there since 1976, and as I think about the artists who continue to come out of that institution, I can’t imagine where else those artists would have emerged from in its absence. That was obviously the rationale for its existence; there was no other place that could have provided that extraordinary level of support.
CMW The Studio Museum was home for us. Many of my most important relationships were formed there. Of course, meeting you was of singular importance in my life; meeting Ed Sherman, incredible. We’re still in touch to this day. It was a place that offered opportunity, a place for engaged social dialogue, not just about photography, but around the arts in general. When I lived in San Francisco before moving permanently to New York, I would fly to events at the Studio Museum. I remember Michelle Wallace’s talk on her book Black Macho and the Myth of the Super Woman: there must have been 500 people there, folks standing in the rafters. Debates went on for weeks after. It was a place not only for artists but for the black intelligentsia in the city. Now, Thelma Golden is there re-engerzing the place. Listen, the Studio Museum is my home away from home. It’s where I go to find out what’s going on in African-American—and African—culture and art. As much as we attempt to work in a number of other kinds of institutions, it’s still the Studio Museum that first and foremost recognizes our contributions.
