Carrie Mae Weems has been awarded the 2024 National Medal of Arts, given out by the the United States government.
Established in 1984, the Medal is presented by the sitting US President to an artist or art patron ‘deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts in the United States.’
Weems is the first Black woman visual artist to be awarded.
Since the 1980s, the Oregonian artist’s multimedia approach – centred on photography both found and staged – has reflected racism back on itself, whether by redeploying historical images of enslaved Americans used to support theories of ethnic inferiority (From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, 1995–96), building enveloping theatrical portraits of complex Black womanhood (the self-starring series The Kitchen Table, 1990) or addressing the disproportionate incarceration of Black men (Remember Me, 2019).
