Carrie Mae Weems-Melds Photos/Poetry/Prose to Overwhelm the Eye & Heart

The Guggenheim exhibit of Carrie Mae Weems work spans 3 decades.  Weems' (Amer. b. 1953) work is influenced by Henry Cartier-Bresson & Robert Frank.  Her photos capture moments that speak with a stentorian voice to the heart about slavery, racial stereotypes, her personal family history, and universally, women's positions within their families and communities.  Ms. Weems is an artist whose photos & text are alluring and troubling.  Weems is a courageous & admirable artist.  Weems appropriated a series of photos originally commissioned by a 19th C Harvard scientist to delineate blacks as inferior race.  Weems colored these photos in crimson and added text, "From Here I Saw What Happened & I Cried."  Her provocative series stirred the Univ. to threaten legal action only to submit & purchase her work for their archives.  (These are not included in the exhibit.)   There is sufficient work from her "Family Pictures & Stories" that lays bare familial bonds & dark underbelly in her family.  Images that confront racial stereotypes such as the demise of the black family are rebuked  in her "family reunion" & "mom at work" & contest Sec. Moynihan's report ('65) "on the deterioration of the fabric of Negro society." Weems also focuses her lens on racial images: "Black Man with Watermelon," and "Black Sambo & Mammy figurines."  The poetry in Weems' art lulls you only to slap you to attention.  "Three Decades of Photography & Video" is presented in a side venue at the Guggenheim, nonetheless, this potent show necessitates multiple visits.