T al ki n g Art with

C a r r i e M ae W e e m s

btll hwh: Car rie Mae , whenever I set' your work I am deeply mo ved..More
t han any conte mporary photog raphe r crea ting represenrenons of black -
ness, your wo rk evokes th e exi lic nature ofbJack people. Everyone forgets
t har when we talk abo ut blac k people living in th e diaspore . we're talk-
ing about a people who live in exile, and that in some ways, like all other
exiles, we imag ine home, we imagine jou rneys of ret urn. We embark on
such journ eys by first looking for t races - by eng aging th e pel impsesr
th at reveals t he m ult ilayered nat ure ofou r experi ence . Derrida's notion of
pal impsest comes to mi nd as I look at you r work . A vision , a journey
throug h rim e- past, present, and futu re - to unrav el connecting
t hreads is ever-present in }'Du r work. T here is both t he evocat ion of exile
in your work and a pol iti cs of di slocation , when , for exa mp le, you are
charti ng your family's movement from t he South to Port land , Oregon (I
think about people often t hinking , well , there are no black people in
Portl and), and you are on th e move. Th at policies of d islocation in your
work makes t his new move towa rds Africa really excit ing. Talk abou t t his
spirit of joume ying , of homeland , abou t black people imag ing some kind
ofstat ic, hom ogeneous sense of our place.

In most every black person's life tod ay, home is where

C m T"l( M o t W/l't'fIJJ:
you lind it, JUSt where you find ir. To me this sugge sts op en possibi lity -
t hat home ( an be for me Port land , O regon, to the: same extent rhac it can
be New York or Ghana or Mau i or Senegal. It doesn't matter.

bh: Tilt: speci fic posr rncdern deccnsrrucn ve posi rional iry t hat inte rro-
gates not ion s of fixed ori gin s, of root s. is nor jus t in t his new work t hat
lays claim to Africa as a possibl e site of home , but in all your work ,

CAl WI: h om t he very beginning ,

 Carrie ,l lat Until led . From tbe Kit chen Tab le !trit!. 1990. SiI ,,"
Wlt't'I1/J .

/Wlltl. EdtIlOtll)! 5. 28 '/~ x 28 114. n Coltrm y 0/ P. P. O. W< Gnlln') . Photograph

n

b, Admll Rttrb.

M: It 's (here in the piece WtlJI Lo9kmgff)r' A/ritd. To me, rhrs new work
calls to mind Aud re Lorde's sense of biom yrhography Y()u'rt not looking
to "document" in some scientific, linear, orderly, factua l way where we
came- from , ho w we got here; you are uncoveri ng th ese derails . but also
explon og the gaps, [he spaces 10 ehe shado ws rhar facts don 't allow us to
see, the mystery.

CIlIW': Home for me is both mysterious and myth ic- t he known and the
unknown. My search begi ns with t he Sta Island; piece. T hat mit ral focus
on fanu ly folklore was ehe beg inni ng of my search.og Out a home place,
tf} lng to figu re out for mysdf, that rnomenr in I ~ early I98 0s, where I
come from, how is that place consrrucred. what went on t here, whar was

...
~6 "itT O N M Y ),lI Nn

th at son of histo rical movement abou t. In any esse, the mo vem ent of my
family, leaving Mississippi. eravel iog from rbe Sou rh to th e o rt h, rhat
ki nd of mi g rat io n . I wan red to kn ow how I fir into that as a woman
who was alread y sta rring to move aroun d , sta rti ng ro t ravel , and di gg ing ,
di gging .

bh: There is th at archeological dimension to your searc h expressed in the

wo rk. Your journey is int ensified by the way in which bot h race and ge n-
der situate you wit hin a cult ural COnt ext of exilt:. Th at is doubly intensi-
fied when you embrace oppositio nal th in ki ng , when you resiS{ the fo rms
of domi nati on t hat would keep you in your place. It's not like you retu rn
" ro t he South" o r go anyw here unprob lem ati ca lly -you retu rn as th is
person who ea rly in her life em braced feminist thinking in aver)' exisren.
r ially self- reflexive way. You r fem inist understand ing of bl ack woma n-
ness has always inspi red }'ou r wo rk. That co mplex femi nist K'nsib il ity is
th ere in rhe Kllrhm Tabl.t series. I am always annoyed when I read crit ics
who a re so fixated on th e b lack ness of rhe images t ha t th ey ig no re t he
q uest ion of ge nder-of desire and power.

eMU'I: These im ages of black me n and bla ck wom en sho uld sp e ak on

many levels. ca lling to mind in the viewer a range of issues and concerns.

bh: Your work compels recog niti on of race and represeru crion even as it
moves beyond race ro an exploratio n of gende r and powe r t hat has univer-
sa l im p lications. Many of you r images of b lack wo m en and men ra ise
issues about the politics of gender in our lives. I am thinkin g here about
t he Kiuhtn Table series.

CAI \f1: Righr . Well . you know , o ne of rhe thin gs rhar J was chinki ng
abou t was whe ther it might be possib le to use black subjects to repre ~nt
un iversa l co nce rns. wben we wat ch H oll ywood movies , usu all y w it h
whi te sub jects. chose image s creat e a cult ural ter rain t hat we watch and
walk on and move th rough . I warned to create rha r sam e ki nd of experi-
e nce using my sub jects. Yet wh en I do t hat . it 's not understood in that
way. Folks refu se to ide nt ify with t he co ncer ns black people ex pre ss
whi ch take us beyond ract' into prev ious ly undocu mented e mo tional
realm s. Black images ca n o nly sta nd for ebemselves and no th ing more .
 LOOKING INTO THE MIRROR, THE BLACK WOMAN ASKED ,
"MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WAL l, WHO'S THE FINEST OF mEW AL L 7"
THE MIRROR SAYS, " SNOW WHITE, YOU BLACK BITCH ,
AND DON'T YOU FORGET JTlII"

Carrie Mat U'/« ms. M irror/M Irror. 198 7. Stillt r prj,tf IInagt . 14 Jh " x
1~ s." Puptr size 20 " x 16. n COI/rtts) 01P.P. O. W Ga lltry. Photograph by
Adii", Rtuh.

bb: Then cn nc s "read" blackness as sig nif}' inS confronn ti on . I think

your work is counrerhege mo nic in t hat it disrurbs-c- Ie challenges and
comesrs convenn or ml perception. Conr esradcn is differen t from con-
frontation. I think what peopl e wunr, in a sense. IS to see the work as con-
front lnB race. because whiteness and whit e viewers are cent ralized as the
primary audience for the work. Thinking of the work as be ing abou t con-
testation. however. mvir es any viewer to work with a part icular image
~I AI T ON ~y ),(I N D

a nd place rhemselves in relati on sh ip ro t he image. In [h is light , my

favorite piece in t he Ai"'tl ui,, series is rhe Ali,.,.",., Alimwpiece: that piece
challenge s me to inrerroga ee my not ions ofbeau ry, to situate myself.

C/\ I \V: Right. For th e most pan, th ere have b ee n on ly white cr ir ics
who 've been talki ng abou t th e work . And they talk about t he works of
black a rtis rs, in ge neral. in ways th at cem ral ize race, seeing on ly this
facer.

hh: Well , tWO issues arise here. There is the wor k made by the black art ist
and the response to the black image. That respon se is shaped by rhe poli-
tics of locat ion- the Stand point from which we look . I JUSt wrore a piece
for Deborah W illis's new col lecd on of essa ys on photog rap hy, Picturing
UJ: AjrirdN A mtrira'i Idtmt;t),and Photography . O ne of the th ings t hat I
wrote about was how phot ography has been so cenrret ro African-Ameri_
cans. Nooerbeless, more t han an )' ot her a rt isti c pra crice. ir has bee n the
rnosr accessible, the mose present in our lives. I wrore abo ut the sigatf i-
ceocecf snapshots. abou t the ways they enable us to [race and reconstruct
a cult ural genealogy through th e image . Thi s cri t ical engagement with
images has been consisrene in black life, but so linle has been wri tten
abo ut it . If the only cr it ical wr it ing about the work of blad: photog ra-
phers looks at the work in a manner that sees it on ly through the lens ofa
colonizing ga ze, then the universal. metaphysical d imension of t hat work
will never be discussed.

Ci\l \fI; Yes. Yes.

/;h: You koow, when I look at the Kllrhtn 'fablt series what im med iately
surfaces is a visce ral connect ion wuh a heterosexual com'ergence of plea-
sure and danger. of powe r and de sire. Yes. t he indiv id uals are black. bu r
the issues raised are about sex uali ry in ge neral, the po litics of desi re-
inti macy and dom inat ion.

CM \V: H istorically. it 's bee n abso lutely im possible: for the vast majority
ofcritics, of white audiences. and even of black audie nces [0 come ro the
wo rk and not first lind Iorem osr fixare on ly on t he b lackness of the
image s. As soon as blackness becomes [he all- impo rta nt sig n. audiences
assume that tilt" images are add ressing vict imization . \'Qhat is the level of
victimization that we' re looking at ? Black people come to it in a different
way, but posing t he same question. They mig ht be ab le to jump past t his,
or leapfrog past that qu ickly. but it's still the same issue. It's the issue for
e'I·er)'one. because we so rarely see black sub jects, right ?

bh: Most of your earlier work t hat isoften seen asdocumema ry phorogm -
phy isn't about victimization at all.

M: That 's exactly why t here has to be a challenge to crit ics to come back
10 th is early work and reconsider ways of seeing and writing abou t it . In

:III sphe res of cult ural producti on , work by black :lrt ists rattly receives
sophisticated critical arrenricn from the ou tset. For example , much of the
e:a rly crit ical writing about Ton i Morrison's work was terribl e. All t'OO
often, black arrisrs must reach a certain pro m inence befo re th e crit ical
writing about their work Stops being shallow and superf icial.

CM \fI: The assum ption th at our abil ity as anises is restri cted. to ou r only
bemg ab le to de al mean ingfully with th e qceseion of race and rage
overderermin es crit ical perception. For insta nce, I was at a gallery abo ut a
year ago. and a white woman was t here looking at some of my new pieces,
which she boug ht, Some of t he. A in',)oJti" pieces and earl ier work s were
pulled for her. I W2S someplace in t he bu ild ing , checking Out some ot her
shit, and g irlfriend walks in, she looks at the work, [he Sia lsIanm piece,
She looks at t he work. and finally she asks if she can be introd uced to me,
They bring me over. She walks over to me, she says, "Is t he work angr y?
But t his work is not makin g me feel guilty." She wants me to tell her how
to respond to th e work because she assumes tha t th e only legitimate
response is g uilt in the face of perceived r.lge,

Db: T he ome r, but no less lim ited , way of viewing you r work is to see
II as many audi ences. particularly whire folks, do, as erbnog rophic doc u-
men eacion .
so ...RT O N MYM INn

bh: T hat 's still a way of denyin g rhe complex cu ltu ral land scape pre.
semed by the images.

CAl W : To see rhe work as ethnog raph ic deflects away from the serious.
ness and makes it mostl y ente rtaining.

bb: In mu ch of your work, you cent ralize black subjectivity in ways t hat
do nor allow whiteness ro rewrite itself using t he black face as though it's
another front ier, anoth er blank page , which whiteness can conquer and
cons ume. The risk t hat you tak e by br eaking a certain photog raphic
silence is that your interest, your arti stic concerns, will be overshado wed
by simplistic, sup erficial respo nses to th e work . Art ist ic work th at is
counrerhegemoni c always risks cooptation by critical practice s that deny,
t hat don 't see t he radi cal impl icat ions of a part icu lar stand point. Doe s
documentary pborograph v make t hese concerns more explicit ?

CAl WI; Documentary as a genre has been very, very interesting to me, and
there are aspects about it that I've always been inte rested in . I starred out
very early working in t hat terrain and spenr a lor of time in a variety of places
photog raph ing in t he tradition of Carrier-Bresson. Early on, my artistic
practices wen-shaped by those t raditions that said: This is how a photograph
is made. These are the elements of a 8000 photog raph. T his is t he way the
shies supposed to be printed. Then you knew that you wert working in that
mode, And I tr ied that . I worked with it and there was something appea ling
about it, the whole idea that you were somehow describing the complicated-
ness of t he human cond ition. That's what dccumenrary was, or certainly was
to me. I think a parr of documentary had a lot to do wit h t he notion t hat you
would go inro somebody else's backyard and capt ure it and bring home the
ethnic image, as trophy, but, hopefully, once you have captured the et hnic
image. in the process of capt uring it , you' ve go ne through some harrowing.
life·tr-.ansformi ng expe rience- like Eugene Smit h, who was beaten in
Harlem , or Cart ier- Bresson, who was shot in Zimbabwe . In your passion CO
documen t you encoun ter a tragic reality that t ransforms, so th at you can
come back even bigger. with your prize, and be praised for that. Well, I
starred to really understand what documentary was, what it really was, and I
understood It even more later. However, when I sta rred to unde rstand it,
when l learned that the terrain th at I wanted to walk on couldn't be carried
Alison Saar. Sapphirr_ 1986.
Alison Saar. D/I'a. 1988.
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-an-Mtchet Basqutet . Irony ofa Ntgro Pollctnllln. 198 1.

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-

l- mma Amos. Lucas ' Drram. 1994.

Emma Amos. Mrs. Gauglns Shirt. 1994.
Emma Amos. Malrolm X. Morlty. Mati~ & Me. 1993.
po

Emma Amos. X Flag. 1993.

 TA LK IN C tl RT WJT I~ C A R R I E M A E WE E MS 81

forth by srraighedocumentary, my attention shifted. There was someth ing

different t hat I wanted ro explore, work that had the appearance of docu-
mentary bur was not at all documentary. lt was highly fabricated work.

bh: Absolu tely. Your work eng ages a process of defamil ianza rion . You
rake a familiar image, a familia r frame, and through a series of d isplace-
rnenrs challenge us to set' it in a new way.

Ci\l \V: Righ t, rig ht.

Ph: I see your work as profoundly informed by t he polit ics of di splace-

ment, where th e colonizing gaze has to shift itself. It is th is demand that
makes rhe work counrerbegerooo!c. It calls us to interrogate received per-
ceptions. And it is not merely white people who look at t he black image
wit h t he colonizing gaze. We have all been taug ht to look at black images
with a colonizing eye.

C,\I \lr' Exactl y, though it is often black folks, and oth er nonwh ite view-
ers. who are mosr eage r ro shift their gaze -e- re make rhe leap and see with
new eyes.

bIJ: Few cri t ics place your work with in th e d iscou rse about identity,
natio nality. or posecolonialiry, Black artist s and crit ical think ers in Aus-
tralia, aboriginal peopl e. are rejecring th e term /HJurokn;a!ity, using ami-
reknnalism. This is a useful way to frame d iscu ssions of your work . T he
images you create are a form of resisrance. T hose persons who are most
likely to be vicrirnized by the impos ition of a colonizing gaze can reach
into YOUt work and find the streng th that is there . I remember that when
I walked into a museum and saw and 22 l\IilliQn Very Tir ed and Very A ngry
Ptoplt. what srruck me was t he way you used familiar tr opes in this allu r-
ing, poet ic yet profound ly polit ical way. It was SO amazing . {Carrielaugh;]
Walking into th at exhibit was almost like en tering a Buddh ist temple.
(',11m and compassion-surrounded . T he work art iculated our experience as
exiles in the di aspora, for one thin g . in its wandering . Such border-cross-
ing work, combinin g th e idea of Gramsci with Stua rt Hall. T here is no
one-di mensional const ruct ion of blackness or of revolut ion III t he work .
Instead , it problemart zes th e whol e notion of turning . of what we are
82 ",a T o x WY MIN I>

turning toward, And yt:t )'00 are constantly insisting rhar we cannor sim-
ply assume that what we are turni ng toward is-

CM \f!: - is ben er than what you're tu rn ing :twa}' from .

bh: Absolutely. {CarTirlaMghs) This is the power in the work tha t I think
has ro be called OUt more by critics.

CM\V: I've been t hinking abou t waysofforcing t he issues. when it comes

to t he way in which the work gets ralked abou t in the world, You know, I
feel I can't sit back anymore and JUSt allow people ro do whatever t he fuck
t hey want ro do around t he work, particularly when it becomes tru l y d is-
information ,

bb: Also, Carrie. I th ink of )·OIJ as a cult ural crit ic, a th eoret ical peer.
W hen I hear you tal k about the work. you do so with a level oftheoret ica.l
sophistication. NOtall artists can talk abo ut th eir work, placing it within
t heo ret ical frameworks-not everyone has t hat skill. At times the play-
fulness in the work may lead aud iences to overlook its extreme serious-
ness, \'(Ti t and serious deconstruct ion go together. "In-your-face"
conresraricn is an aspect of sati re. irony. Ir ain't JUSt funn y for the sake of
maki ng folks laugh. It 's saying some t hing abou t the multi ple ways tha t
we approach a subject. I JUSt finished writing about the lain'tJ u i. pieces,
the image of the black man in the wind ow.

CAl w: It's called W hat arT rhm things ) 'OIJ ca n't git't a b!a(k man?

bh: You have a tension within the pita irself O n ant: hand you have the
const ruct ion of a bl ack pe tson , and yet you also give us rhe image of .
eype ofblsck male body rhar we rarely see represented in this cu lture,

CM U'!: Very rarely, T hat's right. Th at's right.

bh: And what is t his image do ing ?

CAl \V: For me th e vast majority of the A in 'tJokin series is const ructed
in tha t way-so t here will always be this kind of tension bet ween what
 TI'ILKl lI.Il..o I'IRT W I TI I CI'I R R H MA E "" f loWS iI \

yOU see with in rhe photograph and wh at you set be nea t h it . wi rh the
text always curri ng th rough . Hopefully, th en . for the viewer. th ere
wo uld be a cu riou s pull berween wh at you see and th e way th is sub ject
has been flipped and underm ined by rhe power of hu mo r. of the racist joke.
Fo r th e most part. I think rhar t hat works. For example. jf you look at t he
image of three baboons which I show in a phot og raph -you set' a fabulous
piece, a go rge ous photograph. rig ht ? And th en you have a context; We
would have that lip o n our wall and we would say, "T hat that 's a beuuufu l
blac k fam ily," rig ht ? Th e mom ent t his descnpeion is made of th ree
baboons. and t hat assertion is made by th e rext and th e language that
descr ibes who th ey are , t hen something else is a iled in to q ues t ion in a
very, very, very good way.

Vb: In his essay " Reflect ions on Exile," Edward Said ralks about co nti n-
ge ncy and what it means to be in a co nt ingent world . Well . pan of what
it mean s to be in a cont ingent wor ld i~ t hat meaning is constantl y being
reworked -that im ag es will not a lways have t he sa me me an in g . And
somt' im ages won 't al ways wo rk : ea rlier, we talk ed abou t th e way the
black arrisrs are "bla med" if there are image s t hat don't work.

C,U \V: . . . don 't work , o r fa il.

bb: Where t he very nature of art istic practice is rooted in a phi losophy of
risk , t he fact th at rbere are someti mes images wh ich do not work is pa rt
of t he process.

CM U'': That's right . That's rig ht.

bh: In fact , let's say there are t imes when black people. ind ividua l black
people. have seen th ose images a nd have felt crushed or humiliated by
them , Is th at a failu re of (ht: wo rk, o r is it simply th at. beca use ofco nt in-
ge ncy. because ofci rcumscance, how Ibty see what th ey see hur rs?

eM \fl; Th at's rig ht. It could be bot h.

f;h: Absol utely. This possibi lity of l2ilu re is pan of a deco nserucnve ele-
ment in you r wor k. in ehe sense that much phocogra phy does nor require
il-4 "IT ON MY »IIN O

people to t hin k about audie nce wh ile your work doe s. And that 's pan of
irs genius and power. So much photography does n't lead peopl e to thi nk
deeply abou r rhe work, to interroga te it. And t he value of most prorni-
nen r whi re pho tog rapher s is not d ete rmi ned by aud ience respon se to
t heir work. Yet folks will tell me, "Well, I'm rroubl ed by Carrie Mae
\Xfeems's work, because it doe sn't work with the aud ience." Th e assump-.
tion is char ther e is one correcc response, rath er than multiple responses.

eAfU'!; W hich is much mort' of what I'm interested in at this poim .

bh: Absolut ely. But that's also the funda mental crit ical challenge in your
work to con temporary noooos of t he subject. I mea n, there 's a funda men-
tal post modern q uali ty to your work th at I t h ink is often overloo ked
because t he images are st ructured in a man lier t hat appears si mp le,
srraig hcfc rward . In actuali ty, th e meanings of t he images arc' altered by
t he rexr, Peop le may in itially assume t hat these images are familia r, even
et hnogra phic, bur your use of text displaces, subverts. and changes mean-
ing . For example. I was look ing at th e Af ;rTfJr. Af " Tl'r piece. ask ing ,
"W ho's really looking ?" Is it the white face gazi ng OUt at the black face?
Is it really the hope on t he part of mill ions of white w omen in America
who have anxiety about their beau ty and their seductive powers, who are
th e ones who actually need to look in th at m irror and affirm t he ir pri-
macy-to affi rm t hat b lack wom en can never be mor e bea utiful t han
th ey th emselves are. Looking at th is p iece (rom diverse stand point s
changes its meani ngs. I've seen ind ividual black women respond to it - I
see their d iscom fort . and J t h ink, "God , parr of what th is piece does is
remind us of the poliucs of location that is opera ti ng in all ou r lives. " lbe
piece displace s that sense of fixed location. because the meaning de pend s
on th e dtrecncn from wh ich you gaze at the piece. It mirrors th e posr-
modem emphasis on the fragmented sense of self.

CIlI \V: After t hinkin g abo ut posrmodem ism and all th is stuff about frac-
t ured selves, and so on, when I was consrrucd ng t he Kiuhm '/f,bh series,
Laura Mulvey's article "Visual and O th er Pleasures" came OUt, and every-
body and t heir mama was using it. tal king about the pol itics of t he gaze,
and I kepe thinkin g of the gaps in her text , tile way In which she had con-
sidered black female subjects.
 TA LK IN G A"T WIT II ( "' .... IE WAE W EE MS 8)

hh: That' s ~x actl)' what I was thinki ng . thou g h you and J didn 't know
each orher at t he time. Her piece was the caralysr (or me ro wrire my piece
on black female spectators. art iculati ng theoret icall y exactly what you
were doi ng in the Kil(bm T(Jhlrse ri ~ s ,

eM\V: All the pieces in t he KirdNn TobIt series high light "t he gaze." par-
tlcula rly rbe piece where the woman is sin ing with a man leaning aga inst
her. his head buried in her neck . a mirror placed direcrly in from of her,
but she looks beyond t hat to the sub ject.

hh: Go, gi rl.

CM lV: At the audien ce. right ?

M: Hm -mmm . Yes.

CAllV: You know, JUSt using that as the begin ning and the turni ng poin t
to Ri p all t hat sh it around. and to start crea ti ng a space in which black
women art' looking back, righ t ?

bb: Right,

CAl \("1: Looking back. and challe ng ing all of t hose assumpt ions about
gaze. and also q uestionin g w ho is in fact looking . How much are wh ite
women looking ? How much are black men looking ?

bh: Your work immediately challe nges ou r sense of blackness.

C" I \v.. os. yes.

bh: Righ t now so mu ch in pop ular cult ure defines b lackness as b lack
urban experience. And. to some exrenr. I find your focus on the South 50
powerfu l - its evocat ion of ou r concern wit h return . In so ma ny ways
you r work can be talked about as l inked to psychoanalysis. part icu larly
the issue of recogni tion and memory.

eM \("1; Oh sure. oh sure.

'6 ,U T ON M Y MI/l<, O

bh: \Vlr need ro acknowledge that there are Other comp lexities of black-
ness that are nm eme rging from - from the urban scene. \Vlhen I t hi nk of
a piece like TbeAI(JIlrtJ/Spri ngs {Sea Island series)

CAl U'I: That was so bad! !!

bh: \Vle can ta lk for days abo ut the multi layered rextu ahry with in t hat
piece. becau se on one hand you have th e nor ion of Count ry and ci t y, of
pri mitive long ing and the desire for prog ress.

CM \~ Yeah . That was so bad. I can't even be lieve I made it .

bh: I know, and I th ink people should not look a t that piece and reduce it
to some t hing sim ple about the Sout h and how the folk s do c reat ive shit
with rrush.

CMW: Right , rig ht , rig hl.

bh: In Tht " faunsJSpring we have this not ion of the place of technology in
agra rian black life, W hat black peop le do with it. And where is thi s sig n
of modern life, tilt: manress spring, t hat becomes the backd rop in a nat-
ural, pasto ral world , where it app ears in union with aar uree-- nor aga inst ,
but a p3 rt of nature.

CMU'!: Rig ht, it 's linked to a whole be lief system. You know, we have to
make art work for us within the context of our ow n ind ividu al belief sys-
tems. I've often t houg ht about t his, H ow do you do thi s wit h phc rogrs-
ph y? How do you descri be com plex expe riences in a pho tograph ? W hat
are the sig hts of it ? What shou ld it have to look lik e? What doe s it have
to challenge? To whom is it cha lle ng ing? You kn ow, who's it for? All
those kinds of qu estions aft' consta nt ly shift ing for me. The moment rhar
I t hin k rbar I have ir locked do wn is t he mome nt in whic h it Aips; you
can'r talk abo ut t he p ros w it hout ta lk ing about t he cons , You can' t ta lk
about th e "posi ti ves " without ralk ing abo ut t he "oeg anves." And you
can't talk abou t the t ruths without ta lking abou t the untruths,

bh: Well , let 's say we talk abou t that pict ure of the slave qua rters. The first
...
TALKIN G Aa T " ITII C " .... IE lol A £ WEUl S 111

thing th at should jump out at people wit h that pict ure is t hat these slave
quart ers are made of b rick- t hat t his is ncr wood and tha t we have co
t hink of th e creati vity and express ive geni us of these ens laved people.
working with bric k. The image invi tes us (0 ask. - \"'har do s laves and
brick have in common?" You know, J kept t hinking about that in relation
10t he whole Afrocenrri c focus now on ancient Egypt and kings and q ueens
and the pyramids. And I also kept th ink ing abcce the slaves. I keep saying
(0 peop le. ~ We l l. what about rhe slaves who were haul ing rhar brick?"

You know, I me an rhere's sorre rhtng else go ing o n here besides simply t he
narrative of kings and queens. And rhere's something in the work you' re
doing around space and housing that speaks to cultu re and class- raising
questions of how we inhabi t space, abou t architecture.

CAl \V: Well , how you inhabi t space and how you consuucr it. as well as
how you constr uct the architectu re of your life, is t he issue: How do you
do that ? W hat will it look like? And within this conrexr, let's $:I.y the Sta
Isla"dJ image. with in this world . how will )'OU cons t ruct th e spau you
Inhab it to make it work for you, even when it was not meant to?

hb; It 's funny. because I was t hinking of you r work as I was reading
Bernard Tschurni's new book. wh ich is th e mosr exciting book I've read
Iarely: Arrhllrclllrt and V il j llnn Nrt , And I was t hink ing abou t how )'ou r
photog raphs inreracr with one another to create th is sense of d isjunct ure,
srerd ng points where you don't end up where you Sta rt off end poin ts that
don't come from t his log ical move from A to B to C.

e M W' No , th ey're not , th ey 're not linear at all. T he)' consr ruc e some-
th ing t hat feels on the surface to be very linear, and. as you said , simple in
the ir constr uction.

hh: Tensions arise when folks loo k at you r work . especially your new
images that highl ig ht return ing to Africa, and they tell me they've talked
wit h "real" Africans who don't set' :anyt hing par ticularly ~ African" about
this work. And I remind them of how rrumy "real" Africans rhere are, If a
few indi vid uals don 't see somet hing In a crea t ive work , does t hat mean
rhis th ing doesn't exist ? Are we st ill sruck within some kind ofWesrern ,
metaphysical, ei t her/o r d uulism , where we can recog nize ou rselves in
8 A RT ON M Y M I NI)

AfriCii only if African pe ople gr.in t us t hat rig ht ?T his is nor about owner-
shi p . T hat 's exactl y what t his work in irs rnovemenr , irs refu sal to b e
fixed . is assert ing : that t hen: is no ownership of blackness.

CAl \V: Rig ht , and the thlOg t hat 's really ineeresring IS rhar t he Ideas tha t
ground rhe work eme rge from m y crit ical reflections abo ut stability and
from ideas of wholeness. You see. wholeness has all ki nds ctfracrure in it.
Ir has all kinds of rupt ures in it. but it is a wholeness nonet heless. For
exam ple, the wholeness might be nor having a tru e and com plete sense of
Africa. Rat her, we might have a sense of a const ruct ion of Africa. as seen
throug h t he eyes ofone perso n who is on some myt hical journey in sea rch
of a place she mig ht be able to call home.

bb: That se nsib ilit y, wh ic h is what we beg an t alking about , is what

th is recent work evoke s. Th is is rhe spirit of exile- realI)" the emot ional
po lit ics of exile. When Cornel West and I we re prepa rin g our boo k,
he spo ke often of rhe exi lic na t ure of black peop le, of why the O ld
Tesra rnenr has b een so im po rtcr u to black be lievers. Everyt hin g blac k
peop le in America have see n or expe rienced has been filte red t hroug h
th at primal expe rience of exile, and that incl udes a long ing to re tu rn to
"rhe promised land ."

CAllE' O nly th(' pro mised land isn't there.

1Jh: Ir's so mu lti facet ed -there are many promised lands .

Ci\l \V: That's right. bu t it 's not chere.

bh: It is a creario n. And it 's th e hi nt of that c rea non t hat your wo rk

moves us toward . What is that homeland that we journey towa rd? Is it a
hom eland of rhe mind or of t he emo rionality, in a se nse, where on e -
whe re one's long in g is what ti es t h ings t oget her. And it 's ln re resri ng ,
b ecau se I thi nk t his is th e subrexrual e mot ional un iver se of your work
that is often overlooked , overshadowed by the focus on race as irs cenrral
me taphor and not in faCt the e mot ional uni verse. And yet it 's rhat erne-
ti c nallandscape in your work t hat g ives it force and passion. Th e KiulN1t
Tablt series often makes me t hink of t he blues. Like how a blues song may
 T"' Lk I NG II RT W IT" C .... RI E .wil E 'll7EU tS 89

say somethi ng in word s th at you may not even like, yo u k now, you rna}'
neve r even ge t all t he words . bUI t he sensibility is what take s }'OU some-
where. I was listen ing to one of my favorites. Mudd y \'Vaters. and th ere's
t hiS line where he says, " I've had my fun if! don't ge t well no more : ' And
I was sayi ng to so mebod y t hat that is a deep ly mea n ingful song for our
t ime. as so mllllYd iseases suc h as cancer, AID S, a ll rbese th ing s, reall y
drsru pe our ex pe rie nce of pleasu re. So now . here 's a so ng that we kno w
eme rges out of It conc rete specificity within blackness and th at shows thi s
co m plex emotiona l field of cho ice in relati on to pleasure an d danger
evoked in th is line: "I 've had m y fu n if! don't get well no more." Your
work has a sinl ll:l.r brood scope. deeply embedded in o ur cultu re and iden-
lit }', I disagree with one of t he crit ics who said th at you r work "rakes us

beycod abst ract idees ." I th ou g ht , actuall y, no, her work rak e s us to the
abst ract com plexity wirh in black idem it }, th at has bee n de nied , and t h:1f
h:IS been denied not me rely by po litics of ['.ICC bur by a polit ics of cultu re,
and par t icul arl y th at of vern acu lar cult ure in oppos it ion to high cult ure.
In pa rt as a re spo nse to high c ult ure's attempt ro red uce vern acular cul-
tu re. none write s about trn- place of vernacu lar cult ure In you r work, in
th e images.

CM \V: It 's not just vemecular culr ure -c--ir's class , T he wor k is very. very,
class-based, It IS wo rking class-based ; J t hin k th at re alit y shapes th e
pic rures -c- cbe way t he images are co ns tr ucted , I'm ve ry Inre re sred in
ideas about bl ues and jazz, tha t expre ssive musical cu lt ure. T hat 's where
1funcnon . T hat 's where J get my shit from. my im pulses Irom. H'us not
in th ar , I' m gene ra lly not interested, rig hr! But how do you agai n use
t ha t, ho w do you. }'OU know . listen to Mud d y Waters . to Bessie and Billy.
and begin to co nstruc t a visual world thar rhu m usic is played in , th at 's
ge ne rated by t he cult ure t ha t th e music crea te s. So in doin g t he Kiu lN"
Tab/~ piece, it was a lways about how you constr uct it. How do you make
a bl ues piece? What doe s th at loo k like ! And because of th e emo t ional
response you're ta lk ing about , t hat e mo t ional Sl'nsibilit y is embedded in
the .....o rk.

bh: Like in my favorite piece. Jilll, I/Yoll Cb«Ju,

CtU\V: You understand what I'm sayi ng!

..
Ill) ,..aT ON M Y /011 11010

hb: Absotcr el y J wrot e abcur rhar photograph In rerms of the black male
bodyspeaki ng abccr rhe sensibil ir)' underly.og rhar piece. I cou ld n't find
:I sing le person who had wr tueo abou t tech nolog y in relati on eo rh is

image . yet the reference that immediately came [0 my mind was "Mission
Im possible.- If you th ink of wh il e pa triarchy as rhe framewo rk withi n
which black men are asked to construct an identity, and that th ere has
bee n a cap .rula eion that black maleness has made 10 th at sys tem, th en
your sub versive image says, "VIm have a choice. b lack man .

CAl \V,. Th at 's rig ht . Th at 's rig In.

bh: To resisl -

ell l \r': - t his bullshir.

bh: T hat gender cr is is you articula te with th is image is rhere in bl ue s

music, yet is nor ralked about. TIle kind of m usic that Skip J ames sings,
"Devil Gor My \'(foman ,- and that whole sense of t he male who is caug ht
up in a po litics of emot ional vul nerabi lit y. Now, what you r piece says is
"Hu! Aha, world , t he e mot iona l vulnerab il ity may not be of che b lack
man in relat ion to the black woman. It may b e of the black man in rela-
t ion t o t he white m a n ~- a nd th e gaze, t hen , is reall y abo ut rhesc me n
looki ng at one a nother. I recentl y gave a pape r called "Doi og It for
Daddy: Represen n og Black Masculi ni t y as Unrequited Longi ng for
W hite Male Love." And rbere we have it in dut portrait ofJ im , t hat sense
of anguish. What is t he ang u ish rhar he is feeling ? And also ebe re's cbe
do ub le t raged y th at we can live in a wo rld where someone can set' that
image and nor see rhar anguish, and only th ink of it as having somethi ng
to do wir h blac k men and black wome n. Th at redu ces the elegance and
gma: of t hat image to t he m undane.

e MU"': It 's not jusr t he imege rhar's red uced . te's out histo rical si tuat ion.

bh: And your process as an image- make r cha nges too . Because in order
for p eopl e to thi nk of th ese images d ifferently , rhey have to thi nk d if-
fere nt ly about the people wh o ma ke these images. We all have to
re th in k a nd la ke a not he r loo k to see t hat we a re no lon g er talking
 TALt: INC, AaT W IT II Aaa lE .lol Alj W EENS 91

abo ut bla ck people in a sta re of co lon ization try ing to come ro so me

prim it ive subjectivity. We are tal ki ng about image- ma kers like you r-
self who an: engag ed in ongoing proce sses of decoloniaarion and rein-
vent ion of rhe self. whose work cannot be unde rstood deep ly because
we lack a crit ical lang uage to talk about COntemporary radi ca l bla ck
subjecti vity.

CM U'~ You have g iven us thi s critical language in your work . Wh y is it so

impossible for mo re criti cs to follow t hat examp le?

bh: Well . I t hink (or man )' other writers there needs to be a demand (or
crit ical g rowt h and change. a reposi tioning of th e self in relarion rc the
"orher" th at only comes t hrou gh th e politics of dem and . T his is what
Frederick Douglass mea nt when he said. "Power concedes not hing with -
our demand ."

( J\l U'~ We have to challenge simp list ic. tradi tional. fixed nc rions of what
criticism is and develop a new vocabulary and language. And unti l t hat
happe ns we will conti nue to have linle unders tandi ng of how ro epproech
the black sub ject . We certai n I)' don't have any understand ing of how f O
ralk about the re bei ng aesrbenc variati on, whar rhnt might mean in rhe
const ruction of the phorog rsphi c image.

/Jh: More folks who are th eoret ical need to write more or ro speak and
doc ument t ha t speaki ng , I think irs an un usual hi stor ical moment,
because we usually presum e th at arrisrs and crirics are nor t he same, but
these days th ere are ind ividua l amses who are able ro dis cuss work in a
crirically aware manner. Mere and more arti sts will do more of what we
conventionally have thoug ht of as rhe work of critics. and rhat anificial
separation 1T\3}' have to be completely and utt erly disrupted .

CM WI: AI50, I think that somet hing else has to happen , and I t hink that,
you know. a part of it has to do with rhe way in wh ich we're educated
about images. f r's as si mple as t his. be ll. I don't kno w ho w mu ch you
know abou t photograph)' and var ious asp ects of pho tography and t he
technical aspects of photogra phy, bu r we have somet hing in phot ography
that's called a zone system.
....
91 "IT ON ....V MIND

hh: Rig ht. right.

C/\l \V: W~ll , th e zone system is com pletely consrruc red arou nd what
makes wh itt' peop le look best. It IS our sys te m and ou r rhec ry-c-- pboto
theory- for cnderseanding what a good print is. and it 15 based on white
skin . So t he very base of photography and the w:I)' tha t pho tog raph)· has
been developed in th e \Ve st as a science , because that 's wha t most of it is,
is based on ideas of whiteness. What would have hap pen ...-d, for insta nce,
if photog raphy h:1(1been developed in J apan! Not just came ras, bur rhe
means of photography. had been developed in J apa n? Th e images would
look very d ifferent , and what is t heoret ically impossible or eve n practi-
cally acceptable wou ld be very. "ery d ifferent as well.
So in t erms of a rt ists being crtucs , I th ink t hey art' no t nece ssari ly
always rbe same people. I'm nor a cr itic . You' re lik e a brilliant woman,
a fab ulous woman with rhu inc redible sensibi lity. And rou use incredi-
b le la ng uage and so fort h and you're a g ifted writer. I a m not a g ifted
write r. I' m an art ist trying to figure OUt how to do t his shit . So, though
it 's rrue that I' m talking a whole lot , and act ually I'm very good on my
feet wh en I' m up a nd t alk ing . I want ro use m y rime to mak e art -
nor to wri te. Yet I wa nt 10 hea r c r it ics talk abo ut work in a way rhar
makes sense.

bh: O h, I do ag ret'. \'V'hen I was do ing mort' an , I was not writ ing .

e M U'/; There just needs (Q be more cri t ical d iscuss ion of what we're
doi ng and what it is we are look ing at , because for t he most part, not only
~ we com ing to black images made by black artis ts , but we're also com-
ing to 2 d iffertnt ki nd of a rrisuc and visual and ae srher ic ter rain rha r is
jus t not und e rstood .

bh: We're looking (0a furo re where there have 10 be more collaborat ions.
T here has to be more di alog ue. And , let 's face it, there have to be alterna-
t ive journals - spaces t hat don'r si m ply pi pe us all through t he mai n-
St ream, because d ifTerem ideas will not be welcomed rhere. If an is to be
talk ed about d ifferentl y. arr isrs cannot rely on rradi rional frameworks of
image making , or 0 11 insr irunonal frame wo rks where image making is
talked about.
 T A LK I N G A RT wrru C A RR I E M A E WE f.M S 9}

CI\ I \V: Rig hr, and wh o was do ing t he t alking ? Right ? Who was doing
rhe talking ?

bh: The excitin g thing is that work like [he work you're doing makes t his
de mand , It co nt es t s in a way that me an s it will no lo nger allow for t he
kind of crit icism th at has happened . You know, it 's a process. T hat 's why
we a re talk ing now. I began as som eone wh o watc hed yo ur wo rk from
afar, bur wh o fele outs ide the loop of t hose c rit ics who write about it.
After we just talked , I t hou g h t , " N o, I have to resist excl usion th roug h
om issio n and lo r d isregard. and e nter that loop of pe opl e who wr ite and
t hink about Carr ie Ma e Wee ms 's wor ks." Collaborarions li ke t h is dia -
log ue will mak e a difference,

CIlI \V: I'm excited when my work is talked abo ut in a serious manner -
nor becau se it 's t he work of Ca rrie Mae \'Qeem s , bu t b ecause I t hink
t here's somet hing t hat's importa nt t hat 's going on In the work t hat needs
to be talk ed about, finally, legi ti matel y, t horoug hly.

bh: \'Qe have to create a kind of crit ical cultu re where we can di scuss the
issue of blackness in ways t hat confront not only t he legacy of subj ugat ion
but also radi cal tra ditions of resistance, as well as t he newly invented self,
t he decolonized sub ject,

CAl \V: Yes, T hat is th e cr iti cal issue for no w and for th e futu re.