Kitchen Table, Carrie Mae Weems at Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago is offering a great opportunity to see Carrie Mae Weems’ Kitchen Table Series in its entirety. Starting tomorrow night at 5pm, the 20-image series, widely held as a masterpiece of performance and story-telling within the photographic frame, will be on view in AIC’s Gallery 292. The images were presented to the AIC as a promised gift by Liz and Eric Lefkofsky earlier this year in March, and the installation will be on view for six months until June 5, 2011. Carrie Mae Weems gives a lecture about the series tomorrow night starting at 6pm followed by a gallery viewing until 8pm. If you’re in Chicago tomorrow night, this is definitely an event to put on your list.

In Kitchen Table, Weems uses a subtle vocabulary of props, gesture, and gaze to frame complex questions about identity, gender construction, representation, parenthood, and the nature of human relationships. The nonlinear narrative and issues presented in this work remain as topical and thought-provoking today as when the images were first created in the early 1990s.

Fans of the Kitchen Table Series and Carrie Mae Weems should know that the Light Work 2011 Subscription program features the image Untitled (Woman and Daughter with Make-up), a hand-printed silver gelatin print in a numbered edition of 100.  Click here for more information and to purchase.