12 September 2026 — 3 February 2027

Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter

C/O Berlin presents The Heart of the Matter, a wide-ranging retrospective of the internationally acclaimed artist Carrie Mae Weems (born 1953, USA). For more than four decades, Weems has examined questions of power and memory in photographs, videos and installations. Her work in particular unpacks and confronts constructions of race and femininity in search of new models for living. Bringing together more than one hundred photographs and videos, from key early works to recent pieces, the exhibition reveals the depth and range of a practice that connects personal experience with social and historical concerns. Carrie Mae Weems is one of the most influential artists working today. Her work explores how images make history, shape memory and determine who is seen and who remains invisible. Taking her own biography as a point of departure, she has developed a body of work that reaches far beyond the personal to investigate identity, belonging and representation. To do so she draws on documentary, staged and conceptual strategies, forging a visual language that is at once poetic and political. Among her early works is the series Family Pictures and Stories (1978–84), in which she pairs photographs of family members with autobiographical texts. Beyond being a private space that defines personal relationships, the family becomes here a vessel of collective memory and cultural identity. In her iconic Kitchen Table Series (1990), Weems turns to domestic space as a stage for human relationships. Seated at the kitchen table, she takes on a variety of roles and explores love, partnership, motherhood, gender roles and self-determination. The images are rich in references to literature, music and art history – among them Langston Hughes and Roy DeCarava's The Sweet Flypaper of Life – and are complemented by song lyrics that add to their layered visual language. Now regarded as a landmark of contemporary photography, the series marked a turning point in Weems's exploration of identity and representation. The exhibition also includes a new series devoted to Black communities of faith and their importance for solidarity, spirituality and resistance. At the centre of the show, Preach (2024) combines early photographs with new images that trace religion and spirituality across generations. The series honours forms of belief and the richness of community, as well as a history rooted in experiences of violence and oppression. The video installation Leave Now! (2022) recounts a family story using Pepper's ghost, a nineteenth-century stage illusion. Drawing on the life of her grandfather Frank Weems, a tenant farmer in Arkansas and member of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, Weems uses this personal narrative to illuminate the realities faced by Black agricultural workers in the American South. Over many decades Carrie Mae Weems has created a body of work that expands the possibilities of visual storytelling. Her works bind personal experience to historical and political narratives and repeatedly challenge viewers to reconsider their own ideas of history, identity and belonging. The Heart of the Matter, curated by Sarah Hermanson Meister (Aperture) and adapted for Berlin by Boaz Levin (C/O Berlin), is a project of Gallerie d'Italia, the museum of Intesa Sanpaolo, in collaboration with Aperture, presented by C/O Berlin. A comprehensive illustrated catalogue, published by Società Editrice Allemandi in collaboration with Aperture, accompanies the exhibition. Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1953, Carrie Mae Weems is a widely influential artist whose work challenges dominant views of history. Over forty years she has built an acclaimed practice using photography, text, fabric, audio, digital imagery, installation and video. Her many honours include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the US Department of State Medal of Arts, the National Medal of Arts, the Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award. Her work is held in collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Tate Modern, London. An audio guide accompanies the exhibition, in which the artist reflects on her life and work and offers personal insights into selected pieces as she leads visitors through the retrospective.

C/O Berlin