Susan Sontag excerpt from On Photography
"In Godard's Les Carabiniers (1963), two sluggish lumpen-peasants are lured into joining the King's Army by the promise that they will be able to loot, rape, kill, or do whatever else they please to the enemy, and get rich. But the suitcase of booty that Michel-Ange and Ulysse triumphantly bring home, years later, to their wives turns out to contain only picture postcards, hundreds of them, of Monuments, Department Stores, Mammals, Wonders of Nature, Methods of Transport, Works of Art, and other classified treasures from around the globe. Godard's gag vividly parodies the equivocal magic of the photographic image."
"What is written about a person or an event is frankly an interpretation, as are handmade visual statements, like paintings and drawings. Photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire."
With the advent of photography, our world has changed completely from what it was prior to its existence. Susan Sontag's essay on photography illustrates the power that lies in photography by referencing stories that demonstrates its impact. As our lives unfold we realize to that our existence is merely just a sequence of fleeting memories, one after another. With the introduction of photography we begin to be able to capture these moments that otherwise would've just passed us by. Sontag references Godard's Les Carabiniers (1963), and when the peasants were offered loot, murder, and rape, instead they brought home postcards of various places and things. That is throughout their journey they realized what the true currency of life is, and that is the memories and experiences acquired along the way. And yet, the magic in photographs, as Sontag writes, is that photographs aren't statements of the world rather than miniature of reality that anyone can create or possess. With most people owning a smart phone, this has become a reality. Anyone at anytime can create a miniature reality that is instantly posses-able, able to be viewed at any moment.
Revisiting Carrie Mae Weems’ Landmark “Kitchen Table Series”
"Weems’s black-and-white photographs are like mirrors, each reflecting a collective experience: how selfhood shifts through passage of time; the sudden distance between people, both passable and impassable; the roles that women accumulate and oscillate between; how life emanates from the small space we occupy in the world."
"Viewers may not be able to see the world outside of the kitchen’s walls, but her characters are trying to navigate it all the same."
Carrie Mae Weem's "Kitchen Table Series" challenges the audience to think about the spaces they inhabit and the relationship we have in those spaces. Depending on where we are we often play a different role, thus, Weem takes on the roles of several characters as a means of exploring women's roles in a space of domesticity. From being a mother, a daughter, a wife, a teacher to her daughter, and more, her photographs provides a glimpse into a moment of happening for each of those characters. This set of photograph challenges the audience to think about their occupancy in spaces they frequent, and more importantly our relationship to those spaces. Although we don't see the world that is outside of the walls of the kitchen, the kitchen itself is a world of its own. This reminds us that there are worlds within worlds, spaces within spaces. Her photograph series reflects on those themes and captures the intricacies of a women's relationship within a space of domesticity.
How Carrie Mae Weems Rewrote the Rules of Image-Making
"Photography can enslave and revictimize, Weems has shown us; it can also, potentially, set us free from our inherited bias and expectations."
"Life is pretty messy stuff. Can we use this space, this common space known around the world, to shine a light on what happens in a family, how it stays together and how it falls apart? What women have to be and what men have to be, because you’re always struggling for equilibrium. Somebody always has the upper hand. Every once in a while you get stasis. If you’re lucky.”
This article gives an insight into the life of Weems and provides background perspective behind the works. She tells her story of introduction to photography, something that changed her life forever. This tool allowed her spark a larger dialogue regarding women's space in the world, and more specifically the experience of being a black women in the world. Weems through her work has challenged the inherited biases and expectations set upon her from society. Living in a patriarchal state, she describes struggling for equilibrium in the world, and it is a true shame that women aren't respected to the same degree as their male counterparts. She recalls her work going for auction at the same time Kerry James Marshall's work did, her work reached an auction price of $67,000 and Marshall reached $21 million. Although her works were equal in terms of social value, the marketplace didn't reflect that. Regardless of monetary value, the value of Weems' works are reflected in its social value and that is its impact that rippled through the art world.
Source Image
Untitled (Woman and phone) from the series The Kitchen Table, 1990
Carrie Mae Weems' Untitled (Woman and phone) inspired me to create a response to her image. I decided to pick the source photograph due to its emotional vulnerability. Instead of recreating the image I decided to envision the other side as the male counterpart. Instead of being a man waiting for a call, the man is in the position to make the call. I wanted to reference the gender roles within our society and create an image that could serve as an opposing perspective to the one Weems shows in her series.
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