CHATS & TRACKS with Carrie Mae Weems

00:00:00: Hello

00:00:08: and welcome to a new episode of Chats & Tracks.

00:00:12: I am Leonie Möhring, today we are joined by the great American artist Carrie Mae Weems With her major exhibition, The Heart of the Matter at CEO Berlin.

00:00:22: we talk about her journey into photography.

00:00:25: The stories and thoughts behind some of our most iconic works Her special connection to Berlin And...of course!

00:00:33: ...the music that inspired her.

00:00:36: Enjoy the conversation Carrie.

00:00:40: it's so nice to speak to you.

00:00:42: How are you?

00:00:43: I'm fine wrapping up my vacation in a few days and headed back to the studio.

00:00:52: It's time.

00:00:52: well, thanks for asking!

00:01:14: Oh, I think...I understand.

00:01:18: I've come to this notion of retrospective a little differently and that it tries a single work, but that it implies a sense of history and a sense multiple approaches in multiple projects over the years.

00:01:47: So I don't think completely as retrospective into this profound sense with beginning my working ends or something else But certainly covers a substantial part.

00:02:04: The exhibition deliberately avoids that kind of chronicle structure.

00:02:08: Instead, it places you at the centre as a muse and model with moral compass within your work.

00:02:17: I imagine it must be fascinating to look back decades through this particular lens.

00:02:25: Does it allow you see unexpected connections between certain series or Perhaps even to rediscover some of your own work?

00:02:35: Every exhibition allows me make other kinds connections with the world.

00:02:43: I have only a few walls in my house, so it's almost impossible for you see the scope of my work at any given time.

00:02:53: And it's really through exhibitions that you begin to really understand, and once what you've actually done over the years.

00:03:10: So to that extent, I'm always really grateful to have the opportunities to show a large body of work so that I can actually walk through the path and the journey.

00:03:22: but i've taken over such a long period of time And for me it seems to be... The thing with interest in being about my work is something that surprises me And that there's a sort of sustained vision over time, That is actually there.

00:03:43: I didn't make it up but It was real and true.

00:03:48: Those concerns are revealed in the work.

00:03:53: regardless Of what i'm looking at The essence has fundamentally not changed.

00:04:00: The questions that the work is trying to raise has not changed over all this time.

00:04:06: And so, that tells me somehow I have some kind of a moral compass that i'm following.

00:04:14: whether it's good one or not... It's nonetheless true!

00:04:22: That you're on a path if your journey and trynna figure out.

00:04:30: journey, let's say started.

00:04:33: Before we get into the exhibition itself and some of their individual bodies of your work I wanted to go a little back to the very beginning and ask how photography first entered you life?

00:04:45: I read that certain ex-boyfriend had something to do with it.

00:04:50: so yeah... How did it start?

00:04:53: ?

00:04:53: And what did it feel like the first time?

00:04:55: Yes, a

00:04:59: boyfriend actually gave me my first camera which I still have.

00:05:05: He was a horrible boy friend.

00:05:07: he's a horrible person but it did give him the camera really grateful and then really if i recall maybe some of my first photographs could possibly had been made in Berlin When the wall was still there, and I was visiting my very close friend Catherine Jelski who lived in the east.

00:05:33: And i think that actually began making photographs right around That time.

00:05:39: so it's interesting to have work.

00:05:42: then.

00:05:43: all these years later almost sixty or fifty years later come to Berlin.

00:05:50: You know, I mean...I think that there was something about the moment when I began photographing.

00:05:59: It's a moment where I knew That i'm going to be on certain path.

00:06:03: There are things that could do with camera and dance with these other forms of performance that I didn't quite have a complete handle on yet, but somehow the camera and photograph allowed me to move through this world in certain kind way.

00:06:24: And document it into some sort of way which was crucial for my understanding about the world where i lived... ...and be able share that capacity with others Always thinking about the audience, who could see the photographs and how they might move you or persuade you.

00:06:49: Or instructs you or guides you or asks to employ you from one position to another.

00:06:58: And of course around that time In the very beginning, perhaps all of work in some sort way is always really dealt with this question.

00:07:07: Who can be represented?

00:07:09: And how could they represent it?

00:07:13: not as a quote best possible light but in light of their complexity and space.

00:07:20: that had been offered to white subjects in many, many forms but it rarely had been adopted really towards the African American subject.

00:07:30: The black subject and brown subject.

00:07:33: so that became my calling us to really try and figure out how do you move beyond the stereotype, the stereotypic?

00:07:41: To offer a more complex reading of possible life.

00:07:46: Whether it was my own or those around me with community in which I was situated Or to field photography In general And therefore to social cultural landscape where we live

00:08:02: Interesting And one aspect of your relationship with photography that I found particularly fascinating is, very early on it felt wrong to you do photograph strangers without their permission even though you admired photographers such as Robert Frank for example.

00:08:22: So photographing people without asking is an established part documentary and street photography but we often really don't think about the methods photographers have used to get certain images.

00:08:37: So you felt quite strong resistance to that very early on, where did it come from?

00:08:44: I think one does need a certain permission when possible – It's not always possible!

00:08:54: But when possible and wherever possible, I think one does need permission.

00:09:18: So I thought, well if you don't like people taking photographs of you on the street and doing whatever they want to do with it.

00:09:25: And contextualizing in a way that they choose to do then you shouldn't do this for others You just can't Do It!

00:09:33: And i'm looking at all these birds there are flying around me.

00:09:37: its really beautiful And so yeah, it's just been in.

00:09:43: many other photographers feel that way as well.

00:09:46: I'm not the only one and So i think for me then It really brought me into.

00:09:52: uh also The thing was wonderful about it and about taking that position Was that it forced me to consider how Then I would need to make photographs what those photographs should look like right?

00:10:05: um and family pictures and stories Of course, the Kitchen Table series and other photographs made around that time

00:10:16: really

00:10:17: helped me to develop another kind of language.

00:10:20: That it assisted in developing a new language for making so out-of-that this problem... of how to make a compassionate photograph that spoke about a condition allowed me think about, um...about how to re-discover what a photograph could actually be and how they can function.

00:10:47: And use the body and myself therefore in that space that I could stand in for others, than i can stand with my own body as a way of critiquing social structures and genders etc.

00:11:08: And you just named it.

00:11:11: one your best known bodies at work is the kitchen table series?

00:11:16: How did you come to choose something as seemingly ordinary, a kitchen table and turn it into the center of an entire world almost?

00:11:27: A stage on which life unfolds.

00:11:30: It's so singular in many ways that has this extraordinary ability to carry an enormous amount of cultural weight.

00:11:41: It's really kind of a remarkable series, and it still surprises even to me.

00:11:49: But I think in that condition—in the context of trying to understand how to build new photographs...how do we make new photographs?

00:12:02: And then deciding that i could use my own environment that I didn't need to be in the street, and I did need a street photographer.

00:12:15: That I needed to document in a way that had been historically defined primarily by an extraordinary group of men but none-the less it really wasn't my space because i'm not a person who really pounds the streets in this kind.

00:12:32: Oh, did you do anything?

00:12:38: I'm not really looking for that.

00:12:41: I'm looking for something else.

00:12:42: it's quieter and more intent And so then the construction of images became important and Of course in that to that extent Really i have to be fair and honest.

00:12:54: but i'm also In the context of photography.

00:12:57: changing kitchen table came along at a moment when photography itself Was changing and women were entering the field Right?

00:13:07: Women were entering the field in a very different way.

00:13:10: Think of somebody like Cindy Sherman or Nan Galton, right all of us working along similar-in similar ways and similarly you know part this that I think is important And i don't know...I mean..i think early on maybe some was examined.

00:13:32: these ideas about about using the domestic setting as a side of contestation for women became really important.

00:13:43: I'm part of that movement, so i am not alone.

00:13:49: we each took very different paths but it was all Since we have always been anchored to notions of the home, use The Home as a space for critique.

00:14:06: To problematize and tease out what happens in that space.

00:14:11: And there is no space like either the bed or table.

00:14:16: That gives us access to an understanding clarity Of What We Do In The Home.

00:14:23: And your work has always been very close to you personally.

00:14:28: The cultural theorist Henry Lewis Gates Jr once observed that there's only very little distance between you and your work, that intimacy is obviously an incredible strength but it also requires I can imagine a certain courage because confidence to put so much of yourself, your ideas you're convictions or emotions.

00:14:55: So openly into your work?

00:14:57: Oh my I don't know.

00:15:00: it's just uh i just...I don't have many filters and I think that if you are going to be authentic If You're Going To Be True Then You Can't Hide.

00:15:18: You can't hide behind the truth if you want to be true.

00:15:22: And so there's nothing unusual in that work, and it doesn't really mean... Most artists whether they're writers or dancers we are dealing with The extraordinary, the extraordinary stuff of what it means to be alive and...to be alive needs to be in constant struggle with yourself.

00:15:52: And so a part of our unique ability is-is our way of expressing what that IS at any given moment.

00:16:01: Um....and of course we all do it you know in accordance with uh..the times in which we live.

00:16:10: but vulnerability is a part of life.

00:16:13: It's the thing that we walk with every single day, you know?

00:16:19: If I'm on your podcast and inarticulate or afraid, vulnerable... ...I'd rather be someplace else.

00:16:33: so there are all these discomforts this comforts about just making it through the day.

00:16:42: And so if I can bring that intensity with me to work, then I think i could actually have a conversation with my viewer That we each sort of assist one another in Making It Through The Day.

00:17:01: Really our desire is helping us make it through make it through our lives.

00:17:08: I'm listening to music constantly because it helps me negotiate my life, It helps me Make it Through the day!

00:17:18: Great writing helps you Make it through The Day.

00:17:20: great Literature Helps Me Make it To The Day.

00:17:22: Great Banging Helps You Make It Through the Day.

00:17:24: Great Photographs Do The Same.

00:17:26: They Help Me Make It Though The Day And To Consider The Complexity of My Own Life Or The Simplicity Of My Own Mind

00:17:36: True.

00:17:38: And another body of work that really stayed with me is the museum series, there's such a strong presence of your figure in these images and somehow you make this buildings feel completely different from the way they do when we simply walk past them or see them on postcards or something.

00:17:59: They can suddenly seem kind I don't know, threatening or inaccessible.

00:18:06: Or even sometimes a little absurd and odd.

00:18:10: How did this series come about?

00:18:13: And what did you feel when you stood in front of these monumental buildings

00:18:18: with um With this feeling again going back to really part our conversation Of the sense that i needed permission the act of permission in order to photograph people.

00:18:38: The first time that I really decided to sort-of step away from the quote, documentary street photography tradition and in the most serious way not only with something like constructing history or kitchen table series but also It was really in developing the Cuba series, my Cuba project that I landed on this idea of how to use my body slightly differently.

00:19:11: And once again, photography was changing.

00:19:14: Now not only was it changing from a certain kind of the role of women in photography or the role African-Americans' photography et cetera.

00:19:26: and now we're dealing with digital technologies.

00:19:28: The digital cameras come along so technology is beginning to affect the way which we are dealing life, and how many frames do you need to capture?

00:19:45: You know there are all these sort of questions.

00:19:47: And so I developed this practice of deciding that i would use my body in a very particular more aggressive determined way out in the world, so moving from something my kitchen table to out-in-the-world spaces of domesticity.

00:20:12: And then in Cuba standing before cultural institutions that I wanted The role of architecture, the role in building and relationship to body etc.

00:20:34: So I started doing this Oh, I don't know.

00:20:40: A long time ago.

00:20:41: and then that helped me to really understand the way that i want your photograph in Rome.

00:20:46: And so it was really in Rome That I really began to sort of even unpack it Even more.

00:20:51: and my last day In Rome might been in Rome for The American American Academy Of Rome.

00:20:58: I'd received a fellowship when I Was there For about a year on the very Last Day the Very last day of My residency literally, I photographed myself standing in front of the National Museum Of Art In Rome.

00:21:16: And the moment i made the photograph like...the moment i make the photograph..i knew that something clear was finally there!

00:21:25: Like it took me a whole year and suddenly this clarity just struck standing before these very specific cultural institutions, this very specific museums and photographing myself in front of them.

00:21:42: And so I immediately went home, I packed up all my...I packed up you know what?

00:21:48: My cameras, i packed a couple of pair of pants and jeans and t-shirt and made a bunch of reservations then flew around Europe photographing myself standing in front of museums.

00:22:02: I mean, knew that it was really going to be very important.

00:22:06: and now is twenty years ago!

00:22:08: And the work has just begun to be shown now.

00:22:14: It's twenty years old.

00:22:15: Unbelievable.

00:22:16: Twenty years ago this year.

00:22:22: So it takes a long time, right?

00:22:24: It took me a long to develop the vision.

00:22:27: And then it took me at... A long time for the audience to catch up with that vision To say Oh!

00:22:39: There's something actually there.

00:22:45: I say good for us now

00:22:48: It's interesting.

00:22:49: So these projects have been important in the museum series, of course very-very important and sometimes these projects really do take time to land for the public to catch up with their thinking... ...to understand the importance of it.

00:23:09: What is the role of The Institution In Our Lives?

00:23:13: How we made a feeling relationship between them and how do we challenge them with our own authority?

00:23:22: And what is the counter-narrative that needs to be told in relationship to the body, to that institution.

00:23:30: They're really quite beautiful photographs.

00:23:33: I don't think very few institutions actually owned them which has always been so surprising.

00:23:41: but then of course it shouldn't have since museums are not likely to critique themselves.

00:23:49: Unfortunately,

00:23:50: unfortunately!

00:23:55: Yeah but anyway I really love this series.

00:23:59: it really made me think oh

00:24:02: i'm so glad.

00:24:02: thank you so much.

00:24:04: yeah they help me too.

00:24:09: I actually stood at one of those very places myself just recently here in Berlin on a museum island, the front-of-the-border Museum where you also stood for one of these photographs.

00:24:21: and yeah now i look at this place completely differently.

00:24:28: You know there's uh...I'll have to send something from ritual and revolution, which is not in this exhibition but was the part of a project that I made while i did residency.

00:24:40: Do you know how to do it in Berlin?

00:24:42: No!

00:24:42: I don't think so.

00:24:43: Yeah long ago like maybe i did my residency in berlin... maybe in nineteen ninety six ninety five ninety six nine seventy seven something..something like that.

00:24:58: This one's called The Botanian

00:25:00: Ah, the Britannian coup.

00:25:02: Which

00:25:02: was great!

00:25:03: I loved it.

00:25:03: so i lived in Berlin for about a year.

00:25:06: do you know this?

00:25:07: No...I didn't know that.

00:25:09: So..you lived in Kreuzberg.

00:25:12: Yes....i

00:25:12: did yes and i loved it at a fabulous apartment.

00:25:16: It's fantastic.

00:25:18: And uh...it was uh...Berlin was perfect for me.

00:25:22: You know ...It is much more interesting than Paris.

00:25:30: There are kind of a grit, there's a grit in another level of I think dealing with its past and it history.

00:25:42: that is more of interest to me.

00:25:44: So it was a very important place for me to be, to live, to work ,to see... To move around.

00:25:51: then for a period time.

00:25:54: i really learned a great deal while and love the quality of light in a city.

00:26:00: The way which light is used was very important to me, I began understanding things about aesthetic values how culture is specified by the way it uses light to articulate its meaning that I found particularly interesting and useful.

00:26:22: And Berlin really helped understand

00:26:26: this.

00:26:26: That's so interesting.

00:26:28: And especially living in Berlin during that time, doing the nineties must have been great as well.

00:26:35: but I mean... The city changed a lot.

00:26:37: Yes

00:26:38: it has!

00:26:38: It was noisy..it is a noisy place.

00:26:42: It's culturally noisy.

00:26:44: and America where much more sort of sanitized.

00:26:52: We have a very difficult time dealing with ideas of dirt and odor, the smell of things.

00:27:00: And so we're sort of sanitized in a way that's really kind of creepy because nothing... Nothing in life is sterile.

00:27:07: everything is little messy.

00:27:10: I think there's something about The Way In Which German Culture Has Explored Mess.

00:27:16: That i Think Is Really Important.

00:27:18: I've never seen it that way before.

00:27:22: Kerry, let me ask you one last question.

00:27:25: It has something to do with music because our radio station is very much about music and it's all different facets and nuances.

00:27:33: so if your images were songs or if your work had a particular sound what kind of music would come closest to the heart of the matter after artistic

00:27:44: practice?

00:27:46: You know, like you should listen to the world saxophone quartet in Dear Lord or Don Pullen's Oh To Life.

00:28:03: I start every morning in my studio listening to Oh To life by The Great Don Pullin and then it ends with... It goes to Stevie Wonder's Love is in need of love today, to Bob Marley's Love Is.

00:28:21: To Ferrell Saunders Gotta Be Free.

00:28:25: and to Louis Armstrong's Dyna.

00:28:31: And so it ends with Love Is.

00:28:38: And so I just, these.

00:28:40: the sound is just so important to me.

00:28:43: It really helps me to steady myself too To move into the day with a certain level of support.

00:28:53: it's like this sort of lift That tells me.

00:28:56: that gives me sense and i don't mean to sound self-righteous in any way But then it gives me this sense that I am in the company Of giants embedded in a deep and complex humanity that is insisting upon love as way of assisting one through their pain.

00:29:25: I think ultimately artists, in some sort of way are the paying business.

00:29:29: we're managing pain We're managing discomfort.

00:29:35: And so when I start my day with music, but certain kinds of music it really helps me to move into the day knowing that i'm a part of a community.

00:29:47: Of people pushing With the same concern.

00:29:52: What a lovely final answer Carrie.

00:29:55: Thank you So much.

00:29:56: It was A pleasure To speak to You

00:29:58: Lovely to meet you Lovely to Speak to you too

00:30:01: Really looking forward to the exhibition.

00:30:04: Me too, me too!

00:30:06: I can't wait.

00:30:06: see how it's installed there and again being in Berlin once...once again thank you so much.

00:30:15: peace and love

00:30:16: same to you.

00:30:17: take care bye.