?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 25,000
CARRIE MAE WEEMS (1953 - ) Black Woman With Chicken.
Gelatin silver print, with printed text, 1987. 356x279 mm; 14x11 inches (sheet). Proof, aside from the edition of 5 printed in the 20x16 inch format. Signed and dated in pencil, lower left verso. From the Ain't Jokin' series of six photographs.
With--a printed card announcement for Carrie Mae Weems, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, November 17, 1994- January 8, 1995, illustrating Black Woman with Chicken.
This proof of Black Woman With Chicken is a very scarce work from the artist's 1987-1988 series. Kathryn E. Delmez describes this important, early series as examining "humor as a socially acceptable way to promote officially unacceptable ideologies through unflinching pairings of stage photographs with racist jokes, ideas or phrases." Ain't Jokin' is also the first artist's series to incorporate text with her photographs.
Another photograph from the edition is in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, and a 10x8 inch proof is in the collection of the Smart Museum, the University of Chicago. Delmez fig 2.2; p. 64.
