Carrie Mae Weems’s work directly and profoundly questions the dynamics of inequality and oppression in society. The clown-like figure at the center of If I Ruled the World (2004) appears in several of her creations: here, she seizes the globe and plays with it with a somewhat diabolical smile. Trained as a dancer, Weems brilliantly captures the posture of her characters. In this work, the figure’s gestures are distinctive and heavy with meaning.
Although Weems is internationally recognized as one of the greatest black women photographers, she has declared that she does not wish to see her work reduce[d] to a question of race. She has questioned and documented the Black and female American experience in depth but has always been keen to explore questions of oppression in an intersectional way. This is intersectionality as defined by the scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe the fate of women at the crossroads of several forms of discrimination: gender, race, sexual orientation, and class.
Weems’s work is potent in its confrontation of power dynamics. Here, the clown playing with the fate of our planet evokes the contempt with which world leaders regard both their citizens, life in general, but also the planet itself, which is dying under the fire of capitalist predation fed by the drive to accumulate ever more material gain and power.
The figure in this work is reminiscent of the title character in Charlie Chaplin’s film, The Great Dictator (1940) who laughed at the fate of a planet so small in his hands. In Weems’s work, the clown figure is holding an inflatable Earth in her fingertips; it is clearly made of plastic – a hollow and fragile toy in the eyes of imperialist omnipotence.
Weems is no stranger to pop culture. She has said how inspired she was by the music videos for Beyoncé’s Lemonade (2016) album. Also, the title of this photograph recalls the rapper Nas’s hit song featuring Lauryn Hill’s extraordinary voice, If I Ruled The World (Imagine That) (1996), which left its mark on the minds of a generation. The lyrics included ‘If I ruled the world (imagine that), I’d free all my sons (I love them, I love them baby).’ The liberation of oppressed populations is very present in Weems’s work, as is a reclaiming of her own destiny by taking control of her own narrative.
The clown appears in other works by the artist, notably The Joker, See Faust (2003). Here, it is the DC Comics villain whose dastardly behavior is in reality only a response (with evil) to violence and social injustice. The Joker is a man with a cynically frozen smile, masking a cruelty that echoes the cruelty wrought on our world. In this photograph, the clown-like figure holds the globe in one hand, while the other grabs at the crotch area, in a gesture that could be insulting or masturbatory. Perhaps both? The figure’s air of disdain, tinged with pleasure, seems to denounce the lack of consideration being given to what constitutes our common good.
The choice of black and white and a somewhat old-fashioned clown costume points to the timeless nature of the violence wrought by the powerful. It also contributes to the humor in the work, which, for Weems, ‘is a very sophisticated form of seriousness.’
Carrie Mae Weems is represented byJack Shainman Gallery (New York), Galerie Barbara Thumm (Berlin), Fraenkel Gallery (San Francisco), and Carolina Nitsch (New York).
Carrie Mae Weems
‘The Shape of Things’
La Mécanique Générale, LUMA Arles
Until January 7, 2024
Rokhaya Diallo is an award-winning journalist, author, and director based in Paris.
English translation: Art Basel.
Published on December 11, 2023.
Caption for full-bleed image: Carrie Mae Weems, If I Ruled the World, 2004. © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin, and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.