MOAD MDC Presents Carrie Mae Weems

The Museum of Art and Design (MOAD) at Miami Dade College (MDC) will present Past Tense, a searing and uplifting evening of words, music, and images by acclaimed multimedia artist and MacArthur Award-winner Carrie Mae Weems. Rooted in racial injustice and current tragic events, Past Tense examines contemporary America through the lens of one of the most ancient works in the theatrical canon, Sophocles's Antigone. Past Tense will have one performance at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 3, at MDC's Wolfson Campus.

Past Tense is part of MOAD MDC's Living Together cross-disciplinary series that will galvanize Miami audiences with thoughtful and challenging performances and exhibitions that draw from art, music, theater, politics, and poetry. Spread across the city at a wide array of venues, the series features performances, exhibitions, film and video screenings, readings, talks, and workshops that will reflect current cultural, social, and political realities. Living Together seeks to find new ways to think about civic space and citizenship, to instigate actions and conversations that may help us to reimagine our cities and our lives.

Deemed "one of the more interesting artists working in the gap between art and politics" by The New York Times, Weems weaves together music, text, projection, and video in Past Tense to take viewers into the enduring significance of the iconic Antigone and her profound relevance to the present. Past Tense's origins lie in Weems' powerful work Grace Notes.

"After working for months on Grace Notes, it occurred to me that I was telling a story not unlike that of Antigone, wherein an innocent man dies by unjustified means and his sister fights for the right to bury him honorably. But the wider community refuses her; her right to justice, and to peace, is denied," said Weems.

From her seminal convening of artists, writers, and musicians at the Guggenheim, and most recently the Park Avenue Armory in New York, to her various installations and exhibitions, Weems continues to bring us together around the ideas and issues that often keep us apart. Through photography, video, installation, and performance, she has created a complex body of art that investigates family relationships, gender roles, racism, classism, and politics.

Although her work addresses a wide array of issues, the artist's overarching commitment is to help better understand the present by examining the collective past. Weems, the recipient of numerous awards, grants, and fellowships, including a prestigious MacArthur "genius" grant, the W.E.B DuBois Medal, and Anderson Ranch's National Artist Award, is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at major national and international museums including the Whitney Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Living Together events will take place at various sites across the Greater Miami area from January to September 2018 and include works by 17 of the most acclaimed national and International Artists, art collectives, musicians, and writers. Events in the series will be produced by MOAD MDC in collaboration with a range of other Miami institutions, and most events will be free and open to the public. Living Together is curated by Rina Carvajal, MDC's MOAD executive director and chief curator, and Joseph R. Wolin, an independent curator based in New York.

Living Together is made possible by the generous support of Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council; the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture; and the City of Miami Beach, Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council.

Tickets are $15 general admission; $ 10 MDC faculty and staff; $5 students with ID; free to MDC students. Purchase at http://www.mdcmoad.org/.

For updates and a full schedule of events, please visit http://www.mdcmoad.org/.