In her artistic practice spanning photography, video, expansive installations, texts, performance, and activist campaigns, Carrie Mae Weems has consistently explored issues of gender, race, and class, as well as the asymmetry of sociopolitical power relations and their consequences. As an act of reclaiming representation and empowerment for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, Weems often employs visual quotations from historical, scientific, museum, and pop culture contexts to develop new narratives about their stories and lived experiences. MJB – Reflection is from a photo series the artist created with R&B icon and actor Mary J. Blige.

Carrie Mae Weems (*1953 in Portland/Oregon, lives and works in Syracuse/New York) was most recently awarded the Hasselblad Award (2023), the Bernd and Hilla Becher Prize and the Harlem Stage Transformative Artist Award (both 2022), the Artes Mundi 9 Biennial Prize, Cardiff (2020), and the Royal Photographic Society Honorary Fellowship (2019), among numerous other honors. Her work has been showcased at venues including Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (2023); Barbican Art Centre, London (2023); Getty Center, Los Angeles (2023); Kunstmuseum Basel (2023); KBr Fundación Mapfre, Fundación Foto Colectania, MACBA, Barcelona (2022); Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (2022); Park Avenue Armory, New York (2021); The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2014); Guggenheim Museum, New York (2014); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012).