Carrie Mae Weems Wins 2023 Hasselblad Award
Carrie Mae Weems on March 10 was named the winner of the 2023 Hasselblad Award, changing into the primary Black girl in historical past to win the prize, which incorporates 2 million Swedish kronor (US $189,000). The consideration is taken into account probably the most prestigious prizes awarded in recognition of a residing photographer. Previous recipients embrace Nan Goldin, Miyako Ishiuchi, Graciela Iturbide, Alfredo Jaar, Cindy Sherman, Dayanita Singh, and Wolfgang Tillmans. Weems will obtain the award in a ceremony to happen in Gothenburg, Sweden, on October 13; that very same day, the Hasselblad middle will launch an exhibition of her work, to be accompanied by a publication.
The Portland, Oregon–born Weems studied trendy dance earlier than turning to pictures in her twenties. By way of a apply encompassing set up, movie, efficiency, and pictures, she investigates points surrounding politics, feminism, and African American identification, in works that variously middle private expertise and historic archives. Her pathbreaking 1990 “Kitchen Desk Sequence” options the photographer herself, sitting earlier than the titular piece of furnishings whereas varied different topics come and go, exhibiting and evoking a spread of attitudes as they variously carry out totally different actions, resembling smoking, ingesting, enjoying playing cards, and making use of make-up. In sequence resembling “From Right here I Noticed What Occurred and I Cried” (1995–96) and “The Hampton Venture” (2000), Weems positioned pictures she discovered within the archives of museums and universities in dialog together with her personal work to touch upon the historical past of racism in pictures in addition to on the emotional lives of the beforehand missed historic topics.
In a press launch, the Hasselblad Basis lauded Weems for anticipating “salient problems with our time – the wrestle for racial equality and human rights – with unflinching visible and moral power, with an “inventive apply [that] is inherently activist, poignant, and lyrical.”
Weems in a press release famous, “Within the midst of the novel shifts happening throughout cultural establishments, and because the first African American girl to obtain the Hasselblad Award, some may say, ‘it’s about time!’ Nonetheless, receiving the Hasselblad Award has left me speechless,” she continued. “To be acknowledged comes with the continued duty to ship on the promise made to myself and to the sphere, which is to shine a light-weight into the darker corners of our time and thereby, with a way of grace and humility, illuminate a path ahead.”