Grabbing, Snatching, Blink and You Be Gone

1993

Carrie Mae Weems American, born 1953

Not On View

Grabbing, Snatching, Blink and You Be Gone

Grabbing, Snatching, Blink and You Be Gone: 1 of Collection Gallery

Grabbing, Snatching, Blink and You Be Gone: 2 of Collection Gallery

Grabbing, Snatching, Blink and You Be Gone: 3 of Collection Gallery

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About the Artwork

In this three-part work, Carrie Mae Weems’s stark photographs of a holding facility on Gorée Island, Senegal, flank a middle panel that includes poetic and chilling phrases that reflect the experience of Africans brought to this site during the 1600s and 1700s. Africans captured in the interior of the continent passed through these halls on their way to enslavement in the United States and the Caribbean. The doorway in the photograph at right was known as the “door of no return.” These works are part of Weems’s Slave Coast Series, in which the artist has reinterpreted and reflected upon historical sites in West Africa from the period of transatlantic slave trade.

Title Grabbing, Snatching, Blink and You Be Gone

Artwork Date 1993

Artist Carrie Mae Weems

Life Dates born 1953

Nationality Please note: Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events. Some definitions include: Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation. American

Culture Please note: Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group. ----------

Medium Gelatin silver prints and silkscreen on panel

Dimensions Installed: 20 15/16 inches × 63 inches × 1 5/8 inches (53.2 × 160 × 4.1 cm) Framed: 20 15/16 × 20 7/8 × 1 1/2 inches (53.2 × 53 × 3.8 cm)

Classification Photographs

Department African American Art

Credit Founders society Purchase, Coville Photographic Fund

Accession Number This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection. Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings. For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups. 1999.73

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Provenance

1999-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

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Exhibition History

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Published References

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Catalogue Raisoneé

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Credit Line for Reproduction

Carrie Mae Weems, Grabbing, Snatching, Blink and You Be Gone, 1993, gelatin silver prints and silkscreen on panel. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders society Purchase, Coville Photographic Fund, 1999.73.