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Carmen Winant: My Mother and Eye - Public Art Fund
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Carmen Winant My Mother and Eye

JCDecaux Bus Shelters in
New York, Chicago, and Boston
February 5 - April 6, 2025

About the Exhibition

Press Release

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.

About the Artist

Carmen Winant    View Profile

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, 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, MN (2023); The Dayton Contemporary, Dayton, OH (2023); Gävle Konstcentrum, Gävle, Sweden (2022); and The Print Center, Philadelphia (2022). Her practice has been featured in notable group exhibitions, including the Whitney Biennial 2024, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (2024); Her Voice—Echoes of Chantal Akerman, FOMU, Antwerp, Belgium (2023); To Begin Again, ICA Boston, MA (2022-2023); Witch Hunt, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark (2021); Being: New Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City (2018); and In Practice, SculptureCenter, Long Island City, NY (2018).

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

(as of 2025)

Installation Images

CarmenWinantArt_Early_0001
CarmenWinant-6281
CarmenWinant-5265
CarmenWinant-5563
CarmenWinantArt_Early_0004
CarmenWinant-5957
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Artworks

11_Winant_Nighttime
10_Winant_theDream
09_Winant_NiagaraFalls
08_Winant_Westbound
07_Winant_Rainbow
06_Winant_Cornfield
05_Winant_Arrival
04_Winant_Horizon
01_Winant_Eastbound
02_Winant_BlessOurHappyHome
03_Winant_Beach

Related Programs


Bloomberg Philanthropies is the presenting sponsor of Carmen Winant: My Mother and Eye. Leadership support for My Mother and Eye is provided by the Abrams Foundation.

Special thanks to JCDecaux.

​Public Art Fund is supported by the generosity of individuals, corporations, and private foundations including lead support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, along with major support from the Charina Endowment Fund, The Cowles Charitable Trust, the Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, The Fuhrman Family Foundation, The Marc Haas Foundation, Hartfield Foundation, William Talbott Hillman Foundation- Affirmation Arts Fund, KHR McNeely Family Foundation | Kevin, Rosemary, and Hannah Rose McNeely, the Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, Red Crane Foundation, Meyer and Deanne Sharlin Foundation, and The Silverweed Foundation.

Public Art Fund exhibitions and programs are also supported in part with public funds from government agencies, including the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

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