Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
Carrie Schneider (American, b. 1979)
Cauleen Reading Gwendolyn Brooks (Blacks, pub. 2008), from the series Reading Women, 2012-14
C-print
Collection of DePaul Art Museum, Art Acquisition Endowment Fund
2016.130
Carrie Schneider’s series, Reading Women, highlights the lack of women in the literary and artistic canons and calls for the equal representation of women as thinking, intellectual beings. Throughout the series, friends and colleagues of Schneider’s are photographed in their own homes, sitting comfortably, and reading works by female authors of their choosing.
Here, previously Chicago-based experimental filmmaker, Cauleen Smith, reads Blacks by Gwendolyn Brooks, a 30- year collection of the Chicago writer’s poems, including “A Street in Bronzeville.” The author’s poetry reflected her deep love and connection to Chicago’s Black community, and most particularly to the lives of Black women.