Artist in Residence Carrie Mae Weems H’17 Receives National Medal of Arts Today From President Joseph R. Biden Jr. L’68

Internationally renowned artist and Syracuse University Artist in Residence Carrie Mae Weems H’17 received the National Medal of Arts from President Joseph R. Biden Jr. L’68 at a White House ceremony on Monday.

“Carrie Mae Weems’ commitment to telling the American story has secured her place among the greatest artists of our time,” says Chancellor Kent Syverud. “This extraordinary honor is a testament to her prolific and powerful work that has profoundly impacted the artistic community, contributed to cultural awareness and inspired change. Syracuse University is fortunate and proud to have such an accomplished artist as part of our community.”

The National Medal of Arts is the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the United States government. The medal is awarded by the president of the United States to individuals or groups who “are deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts in the United States.”

“As the first African American female visual artist to receive the National Medal of Arts in recognition for my contributions is profoundly humbling and a great honor,” says Weems. “I thank my colleagues, along with the many other great women artists of color who came before me, widened the path and took the heat, but unfortunately were not recognized for their tremendous achievements.”

Weems’ four decades of work, including groundbreaking and distinctive compositions of photography, text, audio, installation, video and performance art, depicts topics of race, gender, social injustice and economic inequity throughout American history to the present day.

She is the first African American woman to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, and she is represented in public and private collections around the world, including the Brooklyn Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art; Tate Modern; Whitney Museum of American Art; National Gallery of Canada; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Weems is a 2023 Hasselblad Award laureate and has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships, including the MacArthur Fellowship, the U.S. Department of State’s Medal of Arts, the Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize Fellowship, the National Endowment of the Arts fellowship and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award.

In April, Weems participated in the Black Portraitures conference, organized in concert with the Venice Biennale, and reviewed the work of College of Visual and Performing Arts students in the studio arts program at the University’s Daniel and Gayle D’Aniello Syracuse University Program in Florence.

Her solo exhibition, “The Shape of Things,” is currently running at the Gladstone Gallery in New York City through Nov. 9.

As the University’s artist in residence, Weems engages with Syracuse University faculty and students in a number of ways, including working with students in the design, planning and preparation of exhibitions.

Candace Campbell Jackson, senior vice president and chief of staff, who co-created the Artist in Residence program with Academic Affairs leadership, says, “This well-deserved honor recognizes Carrie Mae Weems’ incredible cultural contributions as a groundbreaking and visionary artist. It also reminds us once again how proud we are to call her our artist in residence. Carrie’s longstanding connection with the University has been a source of inspiration to the arts on campus here and abroad and resulted in numerous one-of-a-kind opportunities for our students.”

Weems first came to Syracuse in 1988 to participate in Light Work’s artist-in-residence program. Over the years, she has participated in several programs at Light Work and has a long history of engaging with students and the University community.

Weems taught at Syracuse University previously, and out of her two courses Art in Civic Engagement and Art and Social Dialogue came the innovative and popular Urban Video Project. She previously was artist-in-residence in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (2005-06) and she was a distinguished guest of the University Lectures in 2014.

Weems also was bestowed an honorary doctorate by the University in 2017 (along with honorary degrees from Bowdoin College, the California College of Art, Colgate University, the New York School of Visual Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art and Smith College).