Carrie Mae WeemsBlues and Pinks 7, 2021
The artist’s Blues and Pinks works are components of a larger installation, The Push, The Call, The Scream, The Dream (2020), versions of which were recently shown at the Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago and Artes Mundi 9 in Cardiff, Wales, first created in response to the death of civil rights leader and the United States Representative John Lewis. A master of recontextualization and appropriation, Weems references her own earlier works and uses archival images including Charles Moore’s historic photographs of violent anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 and iconic photographs from the funerals of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. – both events of mass outrage and deep mourning. The works, some tinted in pink and blue, evoke a sense of tenderness and care and draw a throughline from the past to our present moment.
