Black and Tanned Your Whipped Wind of Change Howled Low Blowing Itself - Ha - Smack into the Middle of Duke Ellington's Orchestra Billie Heard It Too & Cried Strange Fruit Tears

Black and Tanned Your Whipped Wind of Change Howled Low Blowing Itself - Ha - Smack into the Middle of Duke Ellington's Orchestra Billie Heard It Too & Cried Strange Fruit Tears

Carrie Mae WeemsWW-1995-123132
1995·Chromogenic print and sandblasted glass·Image, diameter, sight: Diam.: 45.7 cm (18 in.); Window mat: 59.7 × 49.4 cm (23 9/16 × 19 1/2 in.)

<p>Carrie Mae Weems pairs photography and text to make incisive comments on race, gender, and the politics of representation. This photograph is part of a project that responds to 19th-century photographic representations of African Americans. For the series, Weems overlaid appropriated photographs of Africans and African Americans with etched texts that lament physical and symbolic violence to the black body throughout history. This photograph’s 1863 source image, depicting an escaped slave named Gordon, was titled <em>The Scourged Back</em> and widely circulated by abolitionists as antislavery propaganda. The text folds the history of subjugation under slavery onto the history of jazz, nodding to Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday, and the latter’s song “Strange Fruit,” a haunting requiem to victims of lynching in the American South.</p>

Catalogue

Year
1995
Dimensions
Image, diameter, sight: Diam.: 45.7 cm (18 in.); Window mat: 59.7 × 49.4 cm (23 9/16 × 19 1/2 in.)

Artist

Carrie Mae Weems
Carrie Mae Weems

Photography

Recognized as one of the most influential American artists working today, and for hersocially inspired and engaged oeuvre, the work of Carrie Mae Weems is multifacetedboth in medium and its examination of modern life—from familial relationships topolitical power. Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1953, she initially showed an interest indance, and participated in local dance groups. At the age of 16, she had her first and onlychild, which her mother, aunt, and sister helped raise. Following her graduation fromhigh school, she went on to study with Anna Halprin, a leading figure in postmodern-dance in San Francisco, California. She continued to pursue dance for roughly a year-and-a-half before she began questioning the value of the practice. As a consequence, shemad a rather haphazard decision to move to New York City around her 18th birthday,though she would continue to return to the West Coast, leading to a relatively bicoastallife.

Brooklyn, NY, USA

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Record

Verified by WattsOS
Year
1995
Dimensions
Image, diameter, sight: Diam.: 45.7 cm (18 in.); Window mat: 59.7 × 49.4 cm (23 9/16 × 19 1/2 in.)
Watts ID
WW-1995-123132

Source

Source
aic
Status
verified

Artist

Carrie Mae Weems

Carrie Mae Weems

Photography

View artist profile →