Weekly Selfie 1 - Monique Boss

 

Monique Boss, Untitled, 2024

Carrie Mae Weems, Kitchen Table Series, 1990

I chose this photo from Weems's Kitchen Table Series, where she is centered and folded into herself featuring a glass, bottle of wine, ashtray, and phone. I chose this particular photo because I feel like I see myself most in it. 

Susan Sontag

"To collect photographs is to collect the world. Movies and television programs light up walls, flicker, and go out; but with still photographs the image is also an object, lightweight, cheap to produce, easy to carry about, accumulate, store."

"Although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are."

Response: What I enjoyed most about this reading is the mention of photography being a way we mark time, and capture our reality. I feel like maybe even hinting at photographs being like a language. The reading talks about photography through the lenses of history, dating back to 1839, which really puts things in perspective for me as I build a deeper relationship with photography as an art form.

Revisiting Carrie Mae Weems's Landmark Kitchen Table Series

"But it was also a seminal moment for Black representation in art, influencing an entire generation of artists who rarely saw their own selves reflected back on museum walls."

"Weems, playing the muse, embraces her partner, their arms forming a single spiral."

Response: In the reading highlighting Carrie Mae Weems's "Kitchen Table Series", I found myself very intrigued by how much influence Weems's work had on other people. Finding out that this series influenced and amplified Black representation in art also inspired me. Though the series was not about race, I think it's important to point out how much of an impact it had on others, who looked like her, as well as the art world.  Just about everyone was able to see themselves in Weem's work. It is universally felt. I think that speaks volumes.