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Lincoln, Lonnie, and Me - A Story in 5 Parts

2012

Not on view

Carrie Mae Weems draws on narrative formats such as self-portraiture, social documentary and oral history to scrutinize notions of subjectivity in terms of gender, race and class. Her video installation Lincoln, Lonnie, and Me - A Story in 5 Parts is a meditation on the exclusionary mechanisms of the American dream.

In one sequence, Weems intones a portion of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address while spectres of Lincoln, a crying woman and a reenactment of the John F. Kennedy assassination flit across the screen. In another, segments of speeches by her fellow artist and activist Lonnie Graham alternate with images of race riots and bus boycotts.

Between these scenes, Weems intersperses ghostlike appearances of athletes, performers and tricksters, thus commenting on how white culture has traditionally reduced Black identity to certain societally sanctioned roles and provoking viewers to confront their own complicity in the perpetuation of systemic racism.

Artist: Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953)
Title: Lincoln, Lonnie, and Me - A Story in 5 Parts
Edition: 1/3 + 1 AP
Date: 2012
Place of Creation: Syracuse
Object Type: Installation Art
Medium: Video installation and mixed media
Dimensions: Display Area (Dimensions variable): 132 x 180 x 420 in. (335.281 x 457.201 x 1,066.802 cm)
Credit Line: Museum purchase, Anna Gardner Revocable Trust, de Young Contemporary Art Fund
Accession Number: 2017.49

FAMSF Edition: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (de Young Museum), August 15, 2018–November 10, 2019. "Specters of Disruption," no cat. no.
Other Edition(s): Pittsburgh, The Mattress Factory, September 7, 2012–May 26, 2013. “Feminist And…,” no cat. no.
Charlottesville, LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph, June 13, 2013–June 15, 2013. “LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph,” no cat. no.
New Orleans, George & Leah Mckenna Museum of African American Art, October 25, 2014–January 25, 2015. “Prospect.3 New Orleans,” no cat. no.
Red Hook, NY, Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, June 25, 2016–September 18, 2016. “Invisible Adversaries,” no cat. no.
New York, Jack Shainman Gallery, October 29, 2016–December 10, 2016. “Carrie Mae Weems,” no cat. no.Kennesaw, GA, Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art at Kennesaw State University, August 29, 2017–December 3, 2017. “Medium,” no cat. no.
McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College, September 10, 2018–December 13, 2018. “Carrie Mae Weems: Strategies of Engagement,” no cat. no.
Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, February 16, 2019–June 9, 2019. “Theaters of Fictions,” no cat. no.
New York, Park Avenue Armory, December 2, 2021–December 31, 2021. “The Shape of Things,” no cat. no.
Stuttgart, Germany, Written bergischer Kunst verein Stuttgart, April 2, 2022–August 21, 2022. “The Evidence of Things Not Seen,” no cat. no.
Barcelona, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, October 5, 2022–January 15, 2023. “Carrie Mae Weems: Lincoln, Lonnie, and Me,” no cat. no.
Providence, RI, David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University, September 18, 2023–December 3, 2023. “Carrie Mae Weems: Varying Shades of Brown,” no cat. no.
Arles, France, LUMA Arles, Parc des Ateliers, May 26, 2023–December 30, 2023. “Carrie Mae Weems: The Shape of Things,” no cat. no.
Washington D.C., Smithsonian American Art Museum, September 22, 2023–July 7, 2024. “Carrie Mae Weems: Looking Forward, Looking Back,” no cat. no.
Kunstmuseum Basel, October 26, 2023–April 7, 2024. “Carrie Mae Weems: The Evidence of Things Not Seen,” no cat. no.
Copeland, Huey, “Close Up: Specters of History,” Artforum vol. 53 (1), September 2014, pp. 342-345.Fortuné, Octavia, “Ghosts of the Past: Carrie Mae Weems at the McKenna Museum,” Pelican Bomb, January 10, 2015. https://pelicanbomb.com/art-review/2015/carrie-mae-weems-at-the-mckenna-museum.
Ramyond, Claire, “The Crucible of Witnessing: Projects of Identity in Carrie Mae Weems’s From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried,” Meridians: Feminism, Racism, Transnationalism 13, no. 1, p. 27.
Pogrebin, Robin, “In a New Show, Carrie Mae Weems Takes on Hollywood,” The New York Times, October 27, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/arts/design/in-a-new-show-carrie-mae-weems-finds-monuments-on-tv.html.
De Young 125, (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2020), pp. 86-87, repr., entry by Janna Keegan and Claudia Schmuckli.
Lewis, Sarah Elizabeth, Carrie Mae Weems, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2021), pp. 8-14.
Pogrebin, Robin, “With Armory Show, the World is Catching Up to Carrie Mae Weems,” The New York Times, December 1, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/arts/design/carrie-mae-weems-armory.html.
Marius, Marley, “Carrie Mae Weems Considers the American Political Circus with her Startling and Powerful New Exhibition,” Vogue, December 3, 2021. https://www.vogue.com/article/carrie-mae-weems-the-shape-of-things.
D’Souza, Aruna, “Carrie Mae Weems Sets the Stage and Urges Action,” The New York Times, December 6, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/arts/design/weems-park-avenue-armory-shape-review.html.
Carrie Mae Weems: A Great Turn in the Possible, exh. cat., (Barcelona: Fundación MAPFRE, 2022), repr. pp. 234-237.
Carrie Mae Weems: The Shape of Things, exh. cat., (New York: Luma Arles, 2023), pp. 58-69.
Fletcher, Gem, “Carrie Mae Weems - artist, pioneer, mentor,” British Journal of Photography, June 16, 2023. https://www.1854.photography/2023/06/carrie-mae-weems-barbican-london/.
Moldan, Tessa, “Carrie Mae Weems: Agency Reclaimed,” Ocula, July 5, 2023. https://ocula.com/magazine/spotlights/carrie-mae-weems-agency-for-black-bodies/.
Valance, Hélène, “A Distant View: Revisiting Christina’s World in Carrie Mae Weems’s Lousiana Project,” Image & Narrative 12, no. 2, 2024, p. 108.

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