MIAMI – She’s “one of the more interesting artists working in the gap between art and politics,” according to The New York Times. Carrie Mae Weems weaves together music, text, projection, and video in ‘Past Tense,’ which is rooted in racial injustice and current tragic events and examines contemporary America through the lens of one of the most ancient works in the theatrical canon, Sophocles’s Antigone.
Past Tense’s origins lie in Weems’ powerful work Grace Notes. The Museum of Art and Design (MOAD) at Miami Dade College (MDC) will present ‘Past Tense,’ a searing and uplifting evening of words, music, and images by Weems, an acclaimed multimedia artist and MacArthur Award-winner. The acclaimed work will have one performance at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 3, at MDC’s Wolfson Campus.
“After working for months on Grace Notes, it occurred to me that I was telling a story not unlike that of Antigone, wherein an innocent man dies by unjustified means and his sister fights for the right to bury him honorably. But the wider community refuses her; her right to justice, and to peace, is denied,” said Weems.
From her seminal convening of artists, writers, and musicians at the Guggenheim, and most recently the Park Avenue Armory in New York, to her various installations and exhibitions, Weems continues to bring people together around the ideas and issues that often keep them apart. Through photography, video, installation, and performance, she has created a complex body of art that investigates family relationships, gender roles, racism, classism, and politics.
Although her work addresses a wide array of issues, the artist’s overarching commitment is to help better understand the present by examining the collective past. Weems, the recipient of numerous awards, grants, and fellowships, including a prestigious MacArthur “genius”
grant, the W.E.B DuBois Medal, and Anderson Ranch’s National Artist Award, is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at major national and international museums including the Whitney Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Past Tense is part of MOAD MDC’s Living Together cross-disciplinary series that aim to galvanize Miami audiences with thoughtful and challenging performances and exhibitions that draw from art, music, theater, politics, and poetry. Spread across the city at a wide array of venues, the series features performances, exhibitions, film and video screenings, readings, talks, and workshops that will reflect current cultural, social, and political realities. Living Together seeks to find new ways to think about civic space and citizenship, to instigate actions and conversations that may help us to reimagine our cities and our lives.
IF YOU GO:
WHAT: Carrie Mae Weems: Past Tense
WHEN: Saturday, Feb. 3, at 7:30 p.m.
WHERE:MDC Wolfson Campus’ Auditorium, Building 1 300 N.E. Second Avenue Tickets are $15; general admission; $10 MDC faculty and staff; $5 students with ID; free to MDC students. Purchase at http://www.mdcmoad.org/. CONTACT:For updates and a full schedule of events, visit http://www.mdcmoad.org/.
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