Carrie Mae Weems
Kitchen Table Series

Artist Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953)American, born 1953

CultureAmerican

Titles

Kitchen Table Series

Date1990, printed 2003

MediumPlatinum prints and text sheets

DimensionsSheet (Each platinum print): 20 × 20 in. (50.8 × 50.8 cm)
Sheet (Each text sheet): 11 × 11 in. (27.9 × 27.9 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment

Object number2019.481.1-.34

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Special Collections

Photographs by African American Artists

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionPhotographed in 1989-90, Carrie Mae Weems’s Kitchen Table Series portrays
various roles and relationships in the life of a Black woman, played by the
artist herself. However, the images are not self-portraits. Although Weems
portrays the protagonist, she explains, the woman is “a character. . . . I use
my body as a stand-in, but I never think of it as being about me. Rather, the
character helps to reveal something that is more complicated about the lives of
women.” Such complexities come to life in 20 photographs and 14 text panels,
all of which occur around the kitchen table.
ProvenanceThe artist; Private Collection; [Christie's, New York, Post-War and Contemporary Art Afternoon Session, November 14, 2019, Lot 896]; purchased by MFAH, 2019.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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