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| Kara Walker, untitled, 2013-14, Charcoal on paper, 3 parts, collaged, 60.25 x 100.25 inches, overall. Image via sikkemajenkinsco.com. |
Afterword
NOVEMBER 21, 2014 - JANUARY 17, 2015
530 West
22nd Street
New York,
NY
From
Sikkema Jenkins & Co. press release:
Sikkema
Jenkins & Co. is proud to present Afterword,
a solo exhibition of recent work by Kara Walker.
Afterword elaborates on the creation and aftermath of
Kara Walker’s monumental installation at the Domino Sugar Refinery in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn this past summer. Commissioned and presented by Creative
Time and entitled A Subtlety, or the
marvelous Sugar Baby, an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have
refined our Sweet tastes form the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World
on the Occasion of the of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant,
the exhibition was inspired by and embedded with the history of sugar and the
sugar trade, the focus of which was a colossal, sugar-coated sphinx-like figure
that presided over the cavernous, 30,000-square foot space.
The
current gallery exhibition unfolds in three sections. In the first room, notes
and sketches produced in the lead-up to A
Subtlety are accompanied by drawings made during the run of the
installation, as Walker contemplated the personal impact of this large and
popular work, which drew in over 130,000 spectators and elicited diverse
reactions and interactions.
In the
main gallery is the severed left fist of the sugar sphinx whose gesture recalls
the Afro-Brazilian figa, a talisman
of good luck, which in ancient times has alternated as a fertility symbol, a
rude gesture, and a protector against harm. The fist is presented along with new
works on paper, including the large scale interpretation of J.M.W. Turner’s The Slave Ship (1840) in watercolor, and
several of the young boy attendants - large sweet faced figurines rendered in
resin covered with molasses and sugar – that were also a part of the Domino
exhibition.
Two new
video works will also be shown. An
Audience takes a look at the diverse cast of characters who paid a visit to
the Domino Sugar Refinery an hour before closing time on the final day. Rhapsody – a six minute ballet of
mechanical industriousness and destruction – presents the dismantling of the
sugar sphinx set to the music of Emmanuel Chabrier’s España, that Walker describes as “an industrial age orchestral
warhorse, the bombast and moxie of which suggests the quixotic folly of
dreaming up big things that don’t (or can’t) last.”
Kara
Walker is best known for her candid investigation of race, gender, sexuality,
and violence through silhouetted figures that have appeared in numerous
exhibitions worldwide. Born in Stockton, California in 1969, Walker was raised
in Atlanta, Georgia from the age of 13. She studied at the Atlanta College of
Art (BFA, 1991) and the Rhode Island School of Design (MFA, 1994). She is the
recipient of many awards, notably the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation Achievement Award in 1997 and the United States Artists, Eileen
Harris Norton Fellowship in 2008. In 2012, Walker became a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work can be found in museums and
public collections throughout the United States and Europe including The
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Tate Gallery, London; the Museo
Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo (MAXXI), Rome; and Deutsche Bank,
Frankfurt.
Walker’s
major survey exhibition, Kara Walker: My
Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love, was organized by The Walker
Art Center in Minneapolis where it premiered in February 2007 before traveling
to ARC/ Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; The Whitney Museum of
American Art in New York; The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; and the Museum of
Modern Art in Fort Worth. Recent solo exhibitions have been presented the Art
Institute of Chicago; Camden Arts Centre in London; and Metropolitan Arts
Center (MAC) in Belfast.
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