The third in a series on contemporary artists who may be of interest to cartoonists and comics makers.
Storytelling is an integral part of contemporary artmaking. Very often, its employed in such a way that allows the viewer to create their own interpretations of the work. Their viewership becomes a part of the story the artist is trying to tell. Perhaps no other artist working today employs this strategy of collaborative storytelling better than Kara Walker (b. 1969). Her work employs the use of narrative in such a way so as to subvert our ideas of the American experience. She uses tropes and symbols that are familiar but are used to explore the most uncomfortable aspects of history.
You Do Kara Walker, 1993-94
Walker first came to prominence in the mid-nineties with her graphic, wall-sized tableaus created from cut black paper. They feature imagery and figures of the antebellum American south in a medium wholly consistent with the era: the silhouette. At first glance, the scenes seem mundane but upon further inspection reveal horrific violence and exaggerated stereotypes that create an fantastical and nightmarish storybook. Walker uses the ontology of racist imagery to redefine the history of the South and the effects of slavery.
Walker’s attention to detail in these works allows for a surprising amount of readability and narrative from what could be thought of as a restrictive medium. She plays with scale and perspective by flattening the picture plane into a reductive black and white. When seen across an entire wall or gallery space, the effect is at once mesmerizing and unsettling and allude to the 360-degree historical cycloramas popular during the post-Civil War era for the depiction of battle scenes..
In these narratives, Walker portrays the white figures in an overtly “normal” way, with careful attention to the fashions and styles of the day. The black figures, by contrast are pictured in heavily racist caricature and often with animalistic mutations. In this way, she is able to fully differentiate between the heroes and villains in her alternative histories. By focusing on intricate details within the cut paper, she is able to draw the viewer in to examine the atrocities up close.
The Jubilant Martyrs of Obsolescence and Ruin (detail), 2015
“It feels like a game, this work I do. It is totally heartfelt, and I love the sticky terrain, the straight-up cartoons, how the irrepressible and icky rise to the surface. But I am not just trying to call forth bugaboos and demons for the sake of it, for fun.”
8 Possible Beginnings or: The Creation of African-America, a Moving Picture by Kara E. Walker, 2005
In the early 200s, Walker began turning her cut silhouettes into shadow puppets in animations and films. It’s a natural extension of her work, allowing for a broader range of expression and further avenues of anachronistic play. The films take on a magical realist cast, even as they wallow in the grotesquerie of the subject matter. Often, her shadow puppets are projects along with bright, garish color film gels, providing a technicolor jolt to the start black and white. As her methods have expanded, so too have her subjects, with references ranging from the genocide in Sudan to the OKC bombing.
A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby: an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant, 2014
Perhaps her best known work was also her most monumental. A Subtlety… was created in the soon-to-be-demolished Domino Sugar Factory on Brooklyn’s waterfront in 2014. The massive sphinx brings Walker’s use of racist caricature into 3 dimensions, overwhelming and overpowering the viewer. The obvious allusions to the use of harsh chattel slavery in the sugar trade are combined with the awesome spectacle of public sculpture, re-contextualizing the trope into one of mystery and power.
Also occupying the space are multiple sculptures of “blackamoors” made of cast resin or cast sugar, who introduced further dichotomies of light and dark, raw and cooked. For the duration of the exhibition, the sculpture all slowly melted and deteriorated, offering a sickly sweet coda to the inevitable destruction of the factory.
Kara Walker continues to expand her practice, both as an artist and as a storyteller. The way she combines the humorous with the horrific can offer many lessons as to effective narrative strategies, especially when dealing with difficult or controversial subject matter. Walker’s ability to navigate these waters in such an elegant and powerful way is proof positive that she is certainly one of America’s greatest living artists.
A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby: an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant, 2014
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