Carrie Mae Weems
From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried
1995-1996
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Carrie Mae Weems
From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried
1995-1996
Physical Qualities
Chromogenic prints and sand-blasted glass, Framed (each): 1105 x 851 mm. (43 1/2 x 33 1/2 in.)
Portfolio/Series
from the series, "From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried"
Credit Line
Collectors Circle Fund for Art by African Americans, and Edward Joseph Gallagher III Memorial Fund
Object Number
2002.30a-b
Carrie Mae Weems confronts questions of race, class, and gender in her photographic explorations of black identity. Commissioned by The Getty Institute as a response to an exhibition of rare photographs of African-Americans from the 1840s through the 1860s, Weems created the multi-part From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried.
The two components installed here represent a portion of the larger 32-image project and feature reproductions of a 1925 image of a Mangbetu chief’s wife alongside a series of historical pictures of slaves in America. The words house, field, yard, and kitchen, that appear over the latter images are reminders that the individual personalities and unique lives of these women were eclipsed by the terms of their enslavement, and their depictions stand in dramatic contrast to the commanding presence of the flanking African royal portrait. Through her provocative and emotionally charged juxtapositions, Weems suggests not only the role photography plays in conveying a tragically biased history butalso its potential to be reinterpreted into a more complex and fully-fledged narrative of the past.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 2002; from P.P.O.W., New York
"Hidden Witness: African Americans in Early Photography and Carrie Mae Weems Reacts to Hidden Witness," J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California, June 1995.
Thomas Piche, Jr., "Recent Work: Carrie Mae Weems, 1992-1998," The Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, September 26, 1998 - February 14, 1999.
"Black Womanhood: Image, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body," Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, April 1-August 10, 2008; circulated to the Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, September 10-December 10, 2008, San Diego Museumof Art, January 1-March 17, 2009.
Kristen Hileman, BMA. "Seeing now: Photography Since 1960," February 20-May 15, 2011.
Thomas Piche, Jr., "Recent Work: Carrie Mae Weems, 1992-1998," The Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, September 26, 1998 - February 14, 1999.
"Black Womanhood: Image, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body," Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, April 1-August 10, 2008; circulated to the Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, September 10-December 10, 2008, San Diego Museumof Art, January 1-March 17, 2009.
Kristen Hileman, BMA. "Seeing now: Photography Since 1960," February 20-May 15, 2011.
Lane Barden, 'Hidden Witness' and 'Carrie Mae Weems Reacts to Hidden Witness' at J. Paul Getty Museum, Artweek, V. 26 (June 1995): 25-26.
Susan Canning, 'Carrie Mae Weems: Projects; From Here I saw What Happened and I Cried,' Art Papers, V. 20 (Mar./Apr. 1996).
Grady T. Turner, 'Carrie Mae Weems at P.P.O.W.,' Art in America, V.84 (June 1996):103.
Cherise Smith, 'Fragmented Documents,' Museum Studies, V. 24, No. 2 (1999): 244-59.
Ernest Larsen, 'Between Worlds,' Art in America, V. 87, No. 5 (May 1999):122-9.
Helen Molesworth, BMA Today, 'New On View,' September/October 2002, p. 8.
Barbara Thompson, ed., "Black Womanhood: Image, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body," Dartmouth: Hood Museum, 2008, pl. 127, p. 350.
Barbara Thompson, ed., "Black Womanhood: Image, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body," exh. cat. Hood Museum, Dartmouth College and tour, 2008, pl. 127, p. 350.
