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Carmen Winant: My Mother and Eye

For her notably personal project My Mother and Eye, Carmen Winant assembled hundreds of stills from films that the artist and her mother each made as teenagers driving across the US. In 1969, Winant’s mother traveled far from her family home for the first time, documenting her trip from Los Angeles to Niagara Falls on Super 8 film. In 2001, with a 35mm camera in hand, Winant chronicled her own reverse journey from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. Each of the 11 compositions shows a different exploration of recognizable landmarks, interwoven narratives, and the horizon line. The resulting montages collapse the two journeys across time and landscapes, unfolding individual experiences of newfound freedom, buoyancy, and the power of self representation. On JCDecaux bus shelters, the exhibition connects to the movement of daily transit, inviting riders and passersby to imagine their own stories of travel, transformation, and connection. 

Carmen Winant: My Mother and Eye is curated by Public Art Fund Senior Curator Melanie Kress. 

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About the Artist

Carmen Winant (b. 1983, San Francisco, California) collects photographs from books, magazines, and pamphlets in the archives of women’s health clinics, education centers, and various intentional communities. When accumulated and assembled in large installations by the hundreds or even thousands, these photographs reflect back to us the ways we tell stories; pass down information; and express the value of different bodies, work, and practices through images.

Winant grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and since 2014, has resided in Columbus, Ohio, where she is the Roy Lichtenstein Chair of Studio Art for Ohio State University. 

Winant has exhibited her work widely, including in recent solo exhibitions at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (2023); The Dayton Contemporary, Dayton, OH (2023); Gävle Konstcentrum, Gävle, Sweden (2022); and The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA (2022). Her practice has been featured in notable group exhibitions, including Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2024); Her Voice – Echoes of Chantal Akerman, FOMU, Antwerp, Belgium (2023); To Begin Again, ICA Boston, MA (2022-2023); Witch Hunt, Kunsthal Charlottenborg (2021); Being: New Photography, Museum of Modern Art in New York, NY (2018); and In Practice, SculptureCenter, Long Island City, NY (2018). 

Winant holds an MFA from California College of the Arts. San Francisco, CA; MA in Visual and Critical Studies. California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA; and BA in Fine Art and Museum Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, CA. Winant was a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in photography and her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico; The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; and KADIST Collection, San Francisco, CA. Winant is a regular contributor to Frieze magazine and is an essential voice in conversations about photography today.

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