Kara Walker (b. 1969) is the contemporary artist who uses her platform to explore race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity. She is best known for her gallery-sweeping tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes. Here are five facts to know about the artist:
1. She knew her destiny from a young age
From early on, Walker made becoming an artist her goal. Until the age of thirteen, she lived in a multicultural environment on the coast of California. It wasn’t until she moved to Stone Mountain with her family, where her father taught at Georgia State University, that Walker came to understand the cultural discrimination that existed in the United States.
Art critic Hollan Cotter believes that this may have been one of Walker’s greatest influences: “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.”
2. Her work is controversial
Her work has been criticized by many, including artist Betye Saar who commented: "I felt the work of Kara Walker was sort of revolting and negative and a form of betrayal to the slaves, particularly women and children; that it was basically for the amusement and the investment of the white art establishment."
See also: 5 Feminist Masterpieces
In her defense, Walker said: “I have no interest in making a work that does not elicit a feeling.” The artist has remained true to her style and continues to gain audiences’ attention with her shockingly honest work.
3. Her work was covered up
The employees of the New Jersey Newark Public Library raised their concerns that Walker’s work The moral arc of history ideally bends towards justice but just as soon as not curves back around toward barbarism, sadism, and unrestrained chaos, which was hanging in the reading room at the time, was not appropriate for such an environment – and covered it. The work included images of the Ku Klux Klan and a naked black woman fellating a white man.
See also: Kehinde Wiley: Making a Colorful Difference
Later, it was decided to uncover that artwork. Walker went to the library to speak to the employees about its controversy and ‘too-muchness’. She asked: “[d]o these archetypes collapse history? They’re supposed to expand the conversation, but they often collapse it.”
4. She’s one of the world’s most influential people
Walker is one of the youngest artists to ever receive the MacArthur fellowship, also known as the Genius Grant, and she made it on the Times 100 Most Influential People in the World list at the age of 38. Currently, she is focusing on working with environmentally-friendly materials, which she uses in works such as her commissioned piece Fons Americanus for Tate Modern.
5. Her works reach incredible sums
In 2011, her work The Battle of Atlanta: Being the Narrative of a Negress in the Flames of Desire- A Reconstruction (1995) reached an auction record of $422,500 at Sotheby’s. The work was trumped by Four Idioms on Negro Art #4 Primitivism (2015) in 2019 when this sold for $499,201 at Christie’s.
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Article by Sophie Bubmann