Unregistered

Dear ArtConversation Visitors,

There is an exhibit of work by Kara Walker (African American artist) at the Whitney.
"Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love"

This is a traveling exhibit. Had been at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
http://calendar.walkerart.org/canopy.wac?id=2734
"Kara Walker is among the most complex and prolific American artists
of her generation. Over the past decade, she has gained national and
international recognition for her room-size tableaux depicting
historical narratives haunted by sexuality, violence, and subjugation
but made using the genteel 18th-century art of cut-paper silhouettes.
Set in the American South before the Civil War, Walker's compositions
play off stereotypes to portray, often grotesquely, life on the
plantation, where masters and mistresses and slave men, women, and
children enact a subverted version of the past in an attempt to
reconfigure their status and representation."

I hope that description helps you understand why Kara Walker is not an
artist to present to elementary aged children.....

Kara Walker online:
http://learn.walkerart.org/karawalker

at the Whitney - Oct 11 - Feb 3
http://www.whitney.org/www/exhibitio...ker/index.html

New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/ar...html?th&emc=th
article has slide show of work.

....." Ms. Walker's style is magnetic. Whether in large cutouts, or
notebook-size drawings, or in films that are basically animated
versions of both, her draftsmanship is excitingly textured —
old-masterish here, doodlish there — and all of a piece. Brilliant is
the word for it, and the brilliance grows over the survey's
decade-plus span.

And then there is the theme: race. It dominates everything, yet within
it Ms. Walker finds a chaos of contradictory ideas and emotions.
....."

More from NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/arts/design/index.html

Judy Decker

washu2002

Recently, I visited the Kara Walker exhibition at the Whitney “My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love”. What I saw disturbed me.

I left my thoughts on the “Respond” blog for the exhibition’s website… Thank you Whitney for finally not censoring my posts.

I’m leaving copies of the comments here as well… Why do I care? Because I have no choice. Because I’m tired of being degraded and having my social existence circumscribed by the psychological terms of whiteness. I’m doing this for my own sanity. Walker’s work demands conversation. Let’s talk y’all.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

(second comment post to “Respond” blog)

As a 26yo African-American man, my personal reaction to Kara Walker’s work is one of absolute disgust. As this work ultimately has direct multiple effects on my life, I believe the Whitney should allow for my voice to be heard and to print this critique. To silence a simple blog comment, as you’ve done with my previous post, is to render me as one of Walker’s two-dimensional shadows, trapped within the nightmarish psychosis of white supremacist projections of blackness currently displayed on the Whitney’s walls, completely raped of any connection to the historical humanity of the slaves Walker absolutely betrays. In almost every review of her work, all mention of protest is characterized as the byproduct of a generation gap, between now-fusty ’60s era social politics and the balanced reason of today’s youth. Well, I am here to tell you that, unlike Allison Saar (Betye Saar’s daughter who supports the work), I personally believe Kara’s work carefully situates itself within the post-Civil Rights backlash against racial equality. It’s a trickbag, occasionally adopting the rhetoric of “exposing” stereotypes for the sake of social justice, while at the same time further perverting these stereotypes for the tacit amusement of the predominantly white art establishment.

Walker’s following is informed by several layers of conscious and subconscious reactions, aversions, collusions, interactions with her artwork. Her works offer many a somewhat safe vehicle to experience the grotesquery of American slavery while several comfortable notions of black humanity are left untouched. In a way, her works reaffirm the whiteness of her white spectators against the black projections of white-derived fantasy on the wall. Her pieces position a relationship between spectator and caricature, falsely presenting the spectre of white racial psychosis as the obscured truth for the authentic betrayed historical reality, the depths of which most Americans do not wish to fully confront given the lack of recognition in the relevance of the American slavery reparations movement! In the end, the pieces do not subvert white supremacist fantasies of blackness. The pieces allow for a sort of “ironic” front which offers a sort of pretend resistence but in fact submits to the hegemony of American race relations. A pretend compassion for the deeply Human suffering of blacks in America which informed Wolf Blitzer’s “so poor, so black” statement in the wake of Katrina. A conscious national narrative which posits the equality of opportunity but a subconscious that degrades black humanity as a justification for ongoing massive inequalities in incarceration, education and the workforce and the white privilege that results from being on the positive side of the equation. A subconscious brought into full view on the Harvard IAT test which states that most participants demonstrate a “moderate to strong preference for white over black.” Mostly informed by the continually perpetuating antebellum-era stereotypes Kara Walker depicts, but ultimately palliates for the white subconscious. Is this why her work is lauded as “not being preachy”?

As work like this becomes socially sanctioned by institutions of high culture such as the Whitney and artists such as Kara grow in clout, while it may have been temporarily taboo to display mammy dolls and lawn jockeys, it again becomes socially sanctioned to display art with “ironic” but blatent stereotypes in galleries, corporations, the homes of the social, cultural, economic and political elite.

Yes, art can be a form of resistence but Kara’s work is anything but. In fact, Walker professes a sort of love affair with white supremacy, both personally and in her work. After all, her show is entitled “My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love”. She has made statements such as “I believe the problem with racism in America is that we secretly enjoy it, where would we be without the ’struggle’” and “All black people in America want to be slaves a little bit”. She professes a masochistic submission to white men in the “Notes of a Negress” accompanying the work “Why I Like White Boys”. As Holland Carter of the New York Times wrote in 2003: “Her blacks don’t resist aggression, or at least not in obvious ways. They seem to give in to it, let themselves be abjectly used, often by one another.” If this is resistence, please tell me when I’m dead. Kara’s work panders to a covert liberal racism which adopts fashionable social posturing but lacks any sort of progressive substance. And even among well-intentioned white liberals, whiteness (which by origin and definition is synonymous with the ideology of white supremacy and is naturally defined in opposition to “blackness”) remains in the center of their identities and social experience. As well-intentioned Helen was in her social politics, when the Klan made her put mud on her face I can’t help but wonder whether some of the shame was in temporarily internalizing not so much the humiliation of having to put mud on her face but rather having to temprarily internalize any degradation she might have subconsciously believed to be inherent in the idea of blackness alone. The fact that most Americans show this internalization of racialist beliefs is demonstrated on the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT). In reality, noone who can identify with the experience of being white in America can truly claim to be colorblind as his or her identity is built on the ontological opposite. And even for the most well-meaning white liberal, Kara’s work panders to this subconscious. As this white supremacist subconscious is deeply rooted in all Americans, Walker’s work does not subvert the white supremacist imagination of blackness but rather re-presents it in the tangible here-and-now, bows to its hegomonic force and makes offerings of eagerly copulating slavewomen, debased pickaninnies and confused buckcoons.

I have a problem with Walker’s so-called irony. Is irony a copout? Esp. when the irony is positioned on the authenticity of white supremacy (”irony” caters to an open reading by all racial ideologies) and within the compliance of black women in their continued rape by slavemasters?

Walker’s work disturbs me because while it does present a horrifying, grotesque, epic vision of this country’s foundation it simultaneously hints that it is all ok, that blacks are just as complicit as whites and that these horrors were somehow, in part, self-extracted. She presents this racialized psychosexual fantasy as an obscured reality /shadows on the wall/, as the (subhuman) raw material blacks are truly made of.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

(original comment post to “Respond” blog, this one was censored for 24 hours and only posted after they received the above second comment)

"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."
--Betye Saar, African American artist

"What is troubling and complicates the matter is that Walker's words in published interviews mock African Americans and Africans...She has said things such as 'All black people in America want to be slaves a little bit.'...Walker consciously or unconsciously seems to be catering to the bestial fantasies about blacks created by white supremacy and racism."
--Howardena Pindell, African American artist, at the Johannesburg Biennale, October 1997.

All black people in America want to be slaves a little bit.
--Kara Walker, as quoted by Jerry Saltz in a 1996 FlashArt piece

Her blacks don't resist aggression, or at least not in obvious ways. They seem to give in to it, let themselves be abjectly used, often by one another.
--2003 NYT article by Holland Carter

Kara Walker is not presenting a heightened reality of American slavery. Blackness is a concept that Kara Walker objectively debases. These images are visualizations of what Toni Morrison describes as the white subconscious Playing in the Dark. As such, they are a reflection of the psychosis of white supremacy. However, it is not a full critique of this mindset and may in fact justify this mindset. It is my opinion that she rationalizes and projects in her work, the psychosis of the white male mindset, without the guilt, in fact with total acceptence.

Unregistered

Greetings "Washu2002",

You brought a big smile to my face today. Someone really is reading my posts on this forum. Kara Walker's work does demand "conversation". I am hoping I can get more to read what you wrote. Will post to the art education list serves soon.

I have been waitng for a long time for there to be some real "ArtConversation". Hat's off to you. Please respond more when the mood strikes.

Blessings,

Judy Decker

John

I agree, thanks for the thoughtful post. I've seen Kara Walker's work reproduced many times, possibly out of context, and now I'm going to have to go back and re-evaluate it.

I still find myself wondering whether she's being judged on the work itself or on her words, and to what degree that's appropriate. A good artist may not be able to verbalize, and IMO is likely not even aware of, all the levels of meaning of his or her artwork.

Drew

From all the reviews and interviews on this topic, I find the previously posted comment the most lucid statement of all:

"In reality, no one who can identify with the experience of being white in America can truly claim to be colorblind as his or her identity is built on the opposite. And even for the most well-meaning white liberal, Kara's work panders to this subconscious. As this white supremacist subconscious is deeply rooted in all Americans, Walker's work does not subvert the white supremacist imagination of blackness but rather re-presents it in the tangible here-and-now, bows to its hegemonic force and makes offerings of eagerly copulating slave women, debased pickaninnies and confused buckcoons."

It is no wonder that this work has gained international recognition. It seems particularly well suited for a predominantly white European culture, which is only capable of deciphering the United States through caricature and stereotype: i.e. all "Indians" live(d) in tee-pees.

Unfortunately, this body of work is so stuck in a specific time and place and is so far from comprehending and experiencing those realities that it does not serve as a metaphor for a broader theme of power and abuse. This shortcoming creates a disconnect so that the Brit, German, "Yankee" etc. is bemused by 'play of shadows' but does not see how they too are wearing the plantation owner's polished boots and that the cut-out victims are also the masses their own ancestors oppressed and murdered (and still treat like animals). What Czech, for example, would view this work, look under his or her nose and see that this might as well be the testimony of a modern day "gypsy" aimed at him or her. It is too easy to arrest the atrocities of the South to the South. Plantation slavery was an imposed British economic system since the first African arrived to Jamestown in 1619. Every white European and Northerner benefited from it the same way Ms. Walker is benefiting from it now. She is, in some regard, the last living slave owner in America: touring her black "objects" around the country and the world, selling off pieces at the auction block.

-The Museum of Peripheral Art

An art student

I am so relieved and happy to see that all of you are as repulsed as I was today by Kara Walker's show. I agree entirely with the prior statements and cannot say them better myself. I especially agree with Drew statement's about Walker. I would like to add to his comment that in Walker's artist statement (the one the Whitney provided at the beginning of the exhibit), she stated something like "Racism is a topic that should continue to be explored as long as places like Darfur exist and we still hold stereotypes, etc subconsciously". This is a legitimate point. However, Drew notes that her work is very specific to the South, Plantation era of the United States. I did not find that she could justify talking about racism in general in her work presented at the Whitney, in which she represents just one category of a far reaching topic. I might add that her representation also represents only one, highly undignified and grotesque version of that Southern racial narrative which consists only of the negative reality that existed. But, there indeed was strength and dignity to the African American slaves of that period which Walker entirely ignores. As former commentors wrote, Walker seems to be revelling in this disturbing arena for self-gratifying purposes. I left so unsettled wondering: to what end is Walker working? What reaction does she want--more hatred? It seems from the comments above that most didn't walk away with a feeling of global altruism that the Whitney almost seems to hint are Walkers intentions in their initial presentation of her.

We viewers need to talk about artists like Kara Walker I feel, if only to preserve the dignity, history, culture, and reality of those people she represents.

Walter

The lively comments in this thread inspired me to visit the Whitney and review the works of Kara Walker. That my own reaction was far different from many in this thread reflects, I think, a fundamental difference in approach to viewing art.

I believe it’s productive to make a distinction between the reaction to a work of art as bald statement and an appreciation for its generation of a kind of aesthetic energy which distills into a portrait of reality. As for the case at hand, I believe Kara Walker was attempting the production of a realistic picture of her own psychology and that the viewer will be most successful in relating to the art by assessing the success of this effort rather than by subjecting the work’s surface meaning to visceral judgment.

No federal or state law, of course, requires artist or viewer to perceive art one way or the other. Yet there is some established history of commentary by many creative individuals, to the effect that what they are trying to render is not so much social comment as picture.

Consider this statement from Anne D'Harnoncourt, director The Philadelphia Museum of Art, concerning the work of Jasper Johns: "In the process of painting a picture Johns does not feel he is providing every answer, in fact the painting itself is asking a questions as much as it's providing an answer." Johns himself expresses a concern in his work that he "remove the signs of thought-- it is not thought which needs showing." As for the interpretation of the work, Johns makes this statement which seems particularly relevant to our topic: "There may or may not be an idea and the meaning may just be that the painting exists. And then like anything [this] disturbs people or calms people or people find something to do with it. It's in the space in which they are. They react to it as they would to anything else.” (From Johns, Jasper. Interview. Ideas in Paint. 1992. DVD. Image Entertainment, 2001.)

Consider as well the following quotation from novelist Milan Kundera. While its wording is harsh, it does illustrate the passion with which an artist might hold the position that it is less than satisfactory to consider a work of art as simple proposition:

“I have always, deeply, violently, detested those who look for a position (political, philosophical, religious, whatever) in a work of art rather than searching it for an effort to know, to understand, to grasp this or that aspect of reality” (Page 91 in Kundera, Milan. Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts. Trans. Linda Asher. New York: Harper Collins, 1995.)

I like to think Kara Walker shares this desire to render a picture of reality, and that from a moral standpoint this picture trumps philosophical posturing. As it happens, the artist has made some statements about her work which seem to occupy a hazy line between psychological picture and social commentary. To cite just one example, a gallery guide which accompanied the exhibition quotes the artist in these terms: “As long as there’s a Darfur, as long as there are people saying, ‘Hey, you don’t belong here’ to others, it only seems realistic to continue investigating the terrain of racism.” Such a straightforward statement by an artist, no matter how well intentioned, is, I believe, unwise.

In general, I think that artists are on shaky ground when commenting on their work: The mechanism of art is tender and teeters on its pedestal in the breeze of unencumbered proposition. Self-commentary is most successful when rendered in terms as abstract as the art itself. For an example of how I think this can be done successfully, consider the prefaces of Henry James. The novelist in his senior years reflected extensively on the formal aspects of his novels, but in language which was as vague, indirect, suggestive, and abstract as his fiction. Paradoxically, it was this very linguistic distortion which rendered the clearest picture of reality.

Despite the rejection of bold claim, art remains subversive-- not because it demands revolution but because it illuminates life’s resonant meaning which is normally hidden, and which exposes the limitations of, rather than contradicts, society's straight forward assumptions. This is true of a Mozart string quartet, which on its surface is as harmless as the work of Kara Walker is outrageous.

mountshang

I remember when I first saw her work at the MCA (Chicago) -- about 10? years ago -- and tried to remember her name -- so I must have liked what I saw -- as the only thing approaching the qualities of Euro-figurative art in the entire museum.

Perverse/confrontational/disgusting ?

Yes -- but otherwise she wouldn't be in a museum of contemporary art, would she?

And I'm thinking -- who does silhouette figures any better ? There have to be some good examples of what is called "folk art" -- but I can't remember seeing any.