LINES OF THE DAY

". . . But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past -- or more accurately, pastness -- is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past." p. 15

". . . But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." p. 153

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Friday, October 12, 2007

Kara Walker


Kara Walker is one of our favorite living artists -- we fantasized having a cover by her on The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square. We didn't think it could happen, and it didn't. But she was very gracious in her rejection of the gig -- Too Busy, preparing for a show.


And now the show is up, at the Whitney Museum of American Art.A tremendo review of the show ran in today's NY Times Art section.


The problem I had with the review is that it could only see the issues of slavery and race in her work. Equally so, the issue she tackles is that of women, and their special place in slavery, and the reviewer seems to have missed that.


This a dense and complex, gothic and spooky artist. Her work is a most appropriate national expression of Halloween, not least because so much of it is created in the 18th and 19th century medium of the silhouette cut-out. Her work says so much about those racists who are currently placing nooses as warnings to African Americans.

[ And then there is the theme: race. It dominates everything, yet within it Ms. Walker finds a chaos of contradictory ideas and emotions. She is single-minded in seeing racism as a reality, but of many minds about exactly how that reality plays out in the present and the past. For her the reliable old dualities — white versus black , strong versus weak, victim versus predator — are volatile and shifting. And she uses her art — mocking, shaming, startlingly poignant, excruciatingly personal — to keep them this way.

Nothing about her very early life would seem to have predestined her for this task. Born in 1969, she grew up in an integrated California suburb, part of a generation for whom the uplift and fervor of the civil rights movement and the want-it-now anger of Black Power were yesterday’s news.

When she was 13, her family moved to Atlanta, and her life changed. There, she discovered, integration had not been fully internalized. As she stumbled her way through the mortifications of adolescence, she was constantly reminded, in large and small ways, that she was black, and she was made to hurt for that. ]

6 comments:

Audrey said...

The one show I plan to see this year. It can't be stressed too often how important, and moving, in many ways, her work is. -A

Graeme said...

I don't have an eye for art, but I find her work very powerful.

Frank Partisan said...

I really enjoyed your post, in light of the reemerging civil right movement, following the Jena6.

Really good blog.

Foxessa said...

I was sure you'd see this show, a.m.p, and probably more than once.

Why didn't we get invited to the opening reception and dinner for this one instead of that Richard Price retro at the Guggenheim?.

Love, C.

Foxessa said...

Graeme -- You will find more and more for your eyes and mind soul the longer you view her work. It's so powerful, for anyone who thinks of slavery, of class, of women, of capital and labor -- right here is where all capital really emerges, out of all the labors of women, whatever the color of their skin.

Love, C.

Foxessa said...

Thank you, Renegade Eye.

I see from your profile we share a lot of interests.

Your blog has a really high design level!

Love, C.