by Gretchen Lytle
Introduction
The Hessel Museum of Art at Bard is a wonderful resource for the larger community. Currently, there are three exhibitions underway, each of which is quite distinct in organization, character, and tone. In light of LLI’s commitment to social justice issues, the exhibition Carrie Mae Weems: Remember to Dream beckons us in. This powerful presentation of work from the past four decades raises questions about the history of systemic racism in the United States. The individual pieces as well as the larger installations catch one’s eyes and ears at first, and then the mind begins to dig deeper, delving into the messaging.
Four Decades of Work
The exhibition space on the left side of the Hessel hosts two separate exhibitions. To view Carrie Mae Weems’s work, start in the entry, where there are several of her large photographs, of monumental structures—with her back as the central, focal point. Why? One usually sees a woman’s face or her nude body facing forward in a museum. Move from this opening trio of photographs to the right and then down the hallway of sound emanating from the Ho Tzu Nyen exhibition to the primary entrance to Carrie Mae Weems’s exhibition.
Family Pictures and Stories
Carrie Mae Weems was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1953, the second of seven children. Initially a dancer and involved in street theater, she moved into photography. She is most famous for her black-and-white photos of people. The earliest work in the exhibition are some of her family portraits from before and during her graduate school days at the University of California, San Diego. Take a close look at the images. One might be struck by the powerful connections in the family. These photographs do not gloss over difficult times nor celebrate only the strengths. One comes away with a feeling of complexity, at big moments and small. She captures moments of people at work, at leisure, and at home with family. Do you recall the challenges of attempting a conversation with another adult while you were in the middle of daily life with children?
Painting the Town and Seat or Stand and Speak
Move on out from this earlier work into the next, very large space, paneled with what seem to be handsome, abstract paintings. In fact, they are Carrie Mae Weems’s photographic prints of buildings where authorities had overpainted protestor statements demanding that Black Lives Matter. The message here is not initially clear, until one realizes that the painted rectangles mask people’s real words from 2020 in Portland, Oregon, following George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis. There is another important installation in this room, which turns it into an interactive space. Note the megaphones, steps, and seats in the center. Visitors are invited to make statements of their own. I happened to be there one time when a group of students were on tour, visiting, trying to figure out whether and how to use their own voices.
Leave, Leave Now!
Don’t miss the adjacent installation, which is directly behind the side wall. You may be able to hear sounds from Leave, Leave Now! Proceed down the dark, narrow hallway to the small movie theater-like space where one can sit or stand to take in Carrie Mae Weems’s and her sister’s audiovisual presentation about their grandfather’s life. Using music, narrative, old footage, and images as well as Carrie Mae Weems’s photos (some of which you might recognize from the family photos in the first room), it tells the story of their labor activist grandfather’s escape from Arkansas in 1936, to Chicago and a new way of living, losing his land and at a distance from family and friends. It’s a charged and touching account of one family’s experiences trying to live their lives against all odds and its effects over generations. One might wonder whether there should be reparations to make amends for this history in the United States.
An Exhibition to Return to
There are nine rooms altogether, with individual pieces and larger installations. Some pieces are direct and immediately demanding emotionally. Some are subtle and challenge one intellectually. Some are photographs of people; some are photographs of objects. Some are videos and some are artifacts. All of them are successful aesthetically and many make one stop, look, and soak it in. And all of them make one wonder about our country’s past, where we are now, and what might lie ahead. Take your time and experience different spaces each visit. There’s a lot to digest.
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