By Rica Cerbarano, May 10, 2025
As an artist, how do you draw from personal experience and reflection to engage with crucial contemporary issues in a universal way? The often-overused expression ‘the personal is political’ is anything but empty in the case of Carrie Mae Weems—it becomes a powerful lesson.
The exhibition "The Heart of the Matter" at Gallerie d’Italia in Turin through September 7 is grounded in this very awareness: that personal experience can give rise to universal resonance. “I am my own muse, but also yours,” Weems seems to whisper through the rooms. Her voice—narrating in the background of several video works—echoes faintly in the distance. Even when it cannot be heard, an incorporeal presence pervades the entire exhibition. It’s not just her body appearing in the images, as one might expect; what emerges is something much deeper—a spiritual force, a guiding presence.
In fact, this is the first exhibition to center her “as muse, as model, and as moral compass,” as curator Sarah Meister insightfully defines her. “More than a leitmotif [...] she is its organizing principle.” This approach is immediately apparent in the opening works, “Roaming” (2006) and “Museums” (2006). In both series, Weems presents herself from behind, not showing her face, in bold confrontation with Italian architecture, and museums around the world. This collection exposes the imperialist, authoritarian, and exclusionary ideologies embedded in such institutions. Her body immediately becomes a spiritual guide, leading visitors through her journey.
Personal and collective histories are deeply interwoven throughout the show exposing racial and gender injustices rooted in American—and global—history,and which persist today. The variety of works on display has led some to describe the display as “too crowded,” but this seems necessary when presenting an artist who, until now, has never had a comprehensive showcase in Italy.
Among the highlights is “Preach” (2025), shown for the first time and commissioned for the exhibition. The 35 framed black-and-white images are dedicated to the Black Church—a collective name for houses of worship that have endured despite the hostility of anti-Black forces. This sequence draws attention to the often-overlooked link between religion and activism, bearing witness to how Black communities, even under immense pressure, have created and adorned spiritual refuges.
Especially powerful is “Painting the Town” (2021), a series of large-scale works that resemble abstract paintings but are, in fact, photographs of painted panels covering shop windows in Minneapolis, installed by business owners and law enforcement following the protests after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020. Through Weems’ lens, they become unintended installations and canvases for the resistance aesthetics of the Black Lives Matter movement, where the splashes of color speak of censorship—efforts to erase street art and suppress the spread of anti-racist messages such as “I can’t breathe” and “No justice, no peace.” Weems critiques the unequal regulation of artistic expression in the U.S. by highlighting the visual parallels between this form of silencing and the geometric abstraction historically dominated by privileged male artists.
The curatorial decision to end the show with the now-seminal “Kitchen Table Series” (1990) is unexpected and emotionally powerful. In fact, this was the early project where Weems began to shift away from personal identity, transforming herself into a symbol and a force of resistance against racialized and patriarchal systems of power and oppression. Her personal story becomes a vessel through which the pressing issues of the Black community are voiced—her body transformed into a site of defiance and rupture.
An entire room is devoted to this work: twenty photographs staged in her apartment in Northampton, Massachusetts where Weems was living and teaching at the time. The central figure—Weems herself—appears repeatedly at the kitchen table, her positioning hypnotic. The story of an unstable yet deeply authentic love unfolds around her, traced through the comings and goings of her partner, friends, and daughter. “This woman can represent me or you; she can represent the audience; she draws you into the story. She is a witness and a guide,” Weems has described. And that’s exactly what she is. We follow her gaze—not defiant, but complicit knowing. Perhaps this depends on who’s looking.
For me—a woman in her early thirties grappling with the daily burdens imposed by gender—the “Kitchen Table” felt like a lifeline. The texts accompanying the images, written in third person, are so raw and honest they cut deep, especially for those of us accustomed to silencing our fears out of concern we’ll be seen as inadequate, too ambitious, or simply inconvenient. I could have stayed in that room for hours, listening to that woman telling me: Don’t hold back from telling your story. Don’t be afraid to show who you are, or where you come from.
Indeed, if the exhibition revolves around the idea of the muse as a witness to historic trauma and a guiding spirit, there is another truth that quietly but unmistakably emerges: everything begins there, in one’s origins, in one’s family. Weems openly addresses her working-class roots, as seen in “Family Pictures and Stories” (1978–84), and revisits personal history in the immersive installation “Leave Now!” (2022), which recounts the story of her grandfather, Frank Weems. After surviving a violent assault by a white mob, vanished—long presumed dead—only to have actually escaped to Chicago, leaving behind his home, family, and livelihood.
Perhaps the most powerful message in “The Heart of the Matter” that Weems conveys is: never feel ashamed of your roots, your identity. Instead, transform them into strength.
Rica Cerbarano is a curator, writer, editor and project coordinator specializing in photography. She writes regularly for Il Giornale dell’Arte and has also contributed to Vogue Italia, Camera Austria, FOAM, among others.
CARRIE MAE WEEMS, “WELCOME HOME, from the series FAMILY PICTURES AND STORIES” 1978-84. © CARRIE MAE WEEMS AND REPRODUCED COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GLADSTONE GALLERY, NEW YORK.
CARRIE MAE WEEMS, “UNTITLED (MAN AND MIRROR) from the KITCHEN TABLE SERIES” 1990. © CARRIE MAE WEEMS AND REPRODUCED COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GLADSTONE GALLERY, NEW YORK.
CARRIE MAE WEEMS, “PAINTING THE TOWN #2, from the series PAINTING THE TOWN” 2021. © CARRIE MAE WEEMS AND REPRODUCED COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GLADSTONE GALLERY, NEW YORK.
CARRIE MAE WEEMS, “UNTITLED; from the series PREACH” 2024. © CARRIE MAE WEEMS AND REPRODUCED COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GLADSTONE GALLERY, NEW YORK.
INSTALLATION VIEW “CARRIE MAE WEEMS: THE HEART OF THE MATTER” GALLERIE D’ITALIA, TURIN.