Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love at The Whitney

Kara Walker, Darkytown Rebellion, 2001. Cut paper and projection on wall, 14 x 37 ft. (4.3 x 11.3 m) overall. Musee d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg. Photograph courtesy the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York


I visited the Kara Walker incredible exhibition at The Whitney last weekend and highly recommend it. It was impressive how well the pacing and flow worked. I have a short attention span like most people, and it managed to grab a hold of me and not let go until I had spent real time with every work. Her large wall installations, which include her signature Silhouettes, and her films were especially memorable because they communicate so much with so little (formally speaking). But the drawings such as in Negress Notes (1995), which I was less familiar with, were also amazingly effective in communicating the same age old issues of race relations (that remain relevant today) to a modern mind.

Go. See. This.


Slate.com has a slide show essay about Kara Walker here.