*‘Painting the Town #3’ (2021) ©* Carrie Mae Weems/Jack Shainman Gallery/Galerie Barbara Thumm

I recently attended an excellent exhibition of the work of artist Carrie Mae Weems. ('Reflections for Now’ is at the Barbican Art Gallery, London until 3 September.)

70-year-old Portland-born Weems trained as a dancer, before taking up photography and branching out into film, writing and installations. Her work explores identity, power, race and social justice. She wants to make us think.

'That there are so few images of African-American women circulating in popular culture or in fine art is disturbing; the pathology behind that is dangerous.'

On entering the first room we imagine that we are being presented with a compelling group of abstract expressionist paintings - large blocks of bold black and brown applied over softer colours. But then we realise that these are in fact digital photographs. We are looking at the graffitied, boarded-up buildings of Portland after the 2020 demonstrations over the murder of George Floyd. The authorities have ordered that all slogans be over-painted.

Protests have been redacted. Dissent has been erased. Voices have been silenced.

*Carrie Mae Weems. Part of the series: From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried 1995-96*

'The camera gave me an incredible freedom. It gave me the ability to parade through the world and look at people and things very, very closely.’

In another room we see nineteenth century photographs of Black Americans compiled by a scientist to support his racist theory of ethnic hierarchies. Weems has tinted these images blood red and added her own commentary.

‘You became a scientific profile/ a negroid type/ an anthropological debate/ and a photographic subject.’

The photographs are presented in circular form, prompting us to reflect on the man that originally pointed the camera. Who was he? What was he thinking? What was his intent?

'When we’re looking at these images, we’re looking at the ways in which Anglo America - white America - saw itself in relationship to the Black subject. I wanted to intervene in that by giving a voice to a subject that historically has had no voice.'

***Carrie Mae Weems. The Louvre from Museums, 2006. © Carrie Mae Weems.***

In another series of photographs, we watch Weems in long black dress standing with her back to us, outside the Louvre in Paris, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and other galleries and museums around the world. The images suggest exclusion, being made unwelcome, being shut out - from viewing and exhibiting; from having your story told; from history.

'It's fair to say that Black folks operate under a cloud of invisibility - this too is part of the work, is indeed central to [my photographs]... This invisibility - this erasure out of the complex history of our life and time - is the greatest source of my longing.’

Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled (Playing Harmonica),1990/99

Weems believes that many of society’s macro-problems begin in micro-relationships.

In her Kitchen Table Series she enacts a woman’s relationships with her partner, her child, her friends. We see anger, affection, boredom, isolation - all around the same simple domestic table under an unforgiving electric light.

'It's impossible to change the social without changing the personal - you have to put your money where your mouth is. And if you're not making those challenges at home, it's unlikely you'll make them in a larger setting.’

Consistently Weems asks us to look again, to look harder; to consider subject and object, medium and message; to reflect on agency and power. She demonstrates that by reframing an image we can be prompted to rethink our assumptions. And even perhaps to react.

‘Photography can be used as a powerful weapon toward instituting political and cultural change. I for one will continue to work toward this end.'

***Carrie Mae Weems, portrait by Jerry Klineberg © Carrie Mae Weems***

'Possession is the motivation
That is hanging up the God-damn nation.
Looks like we always end up in a rut
Trying to make it real — compared to what?’

Roberta Flack, ‘Compared to What' (G McDaniels)

No. 429