Opening 22 June 2023, Barbican Art Gallery is proud to present the first major solo exhibition of Carrie Mae Weems in a UK institution. Widely considered to be one of the most influential American artists working today, Weems (b.1953) is celebrated for her exploration of cultural identity, power structures, desire, and social justice through a body of work that develops questioning narratives around race, gender, history, class and their systems of representation. 

Highlighting her remarkably diverse and radical practice, this survey brings together an outstanding selection of photographic series, films, and installations spanning over three decades, many of which have never been seen before in the UK. Presenting the development of her unique poetic gaze and formal language from the early 1990s to the present day, this exhibition reflects on Weems’s pioneering career. On display are works from her early iconic Kitchen Table Series (1990) which explores how power dynamics are articulated in the domestic sphere and the potential of the home as a space for resistance, to her acclaimed series Roaming (2006) and Museums (2016) where Weems’s muse confronts architecture as the materialisation of political and cultural power. Her oeuvre challenges dominant ideologies and historical narratives created by and disseminated within science, architecture, photography, and mass media. 

The largest presentation of the artist’s multi-disciplinary work in the UK to date, the exhibition also captures the performative and cinematic nature of Weems’s artistic expression, featuring seven-chapter panoramic film The Shape of Things (2021) focusing on the current political climate and the consequences of a long-lasting history of structural oppression and violence in the US. Weems’s lyrical sensibility encourages the viewer to move through the work and become a participant, to confront their own prejudices, and to claim history as their own. 

More information on the event can be found here.