ARTWORK RESPONSE 1
KARA WALKER @ SIKKEMA JENKINS & Co.
Upon arrival, one is greeted with a graffiti-esquie disclaimer outside of the gallery. It reads:
Sikkema Jenkins and Co. is Compelled to present
The most Astounding and Important Painting show of the fall Art Show viewing season!
Collectors of Fine Art will Flock to see the latest Kara Walker offerings, and what is she offering but the Finest Selection of artworks by an African-American Living Woman Artist this side of the Mississippi. Modest collectors will find her prices reasonable, those of a heartier disposition will recognize Bargains! Scholars will study and debate the Historical Value and Intellectual Merits of Miss Walker’s Diversionary Tactics. Art Historians will wonder whether the work represents a Departure or a Continuum. Students of Color will eye her work suspiciously and exercise their free right to Culturally Annihilate her on social media. Parents will cover the eyes of innocent children. School Teachers will reexamine their art history curricula. Prestigious Academic Societies will withdraw their support, former husbands and former lovers will recoil in abject terror. Critics will shake their heads in bemused silence. Gallery Directors will wring their hands at the sight of throngs of the gallery-curious flooding the pavement outside. The Final President of the United States will visibly wince. Empires will fall, although which ones, only time will tell.
Once inside, the minimal gallery walls have been transformed to a political and racial sketchbook, depicting the dreams and nightmares reflective of history belonging to a black woman. It is for this exact reason that this exhibition especially resonated with me; I could see myself, my family, and my reality throughout the spans of white, black and beige papers Walker chose to showcase. One mesmerizing black image dawns a message between the sporadic strokes of sable paint, that reads “YOU HATE ALL BLACK PEOPLE AS MUCH AS YOU HATE YOURSELF.” The POTUS appears in some of the pieces as well, along with what seems to be a number of other politicians. The paintings interested me because I felt I bore the same emotion as they were created in.
One grey piece in particular depicted a number of black women (and some black men) committing what seems to be the lynching of various white men. The obvious irony of the scene, paved with the blatant anger transcribed by the sketchy nature of the painting are what initially drew my eye into it. Once you begin to delve deeper into the image, you recognize the bodies of voluptuous black women wielding weapons and battling white men. One pale body sporting a
corset and extravagant 18th century costume is rendered puncturing the chest of a dark, nude, curvy body; something that signals to me the death of confidence in natural African beauty upon the arrival of eurocentric standards. Most of the black bodies drawn in the piece are naked or wearing solely underwear like panties and a bra, which further resolves the animalistic nature of the race-fueled war scene. Babies with dolls and torture tools are amongst other objects in this contradictory interpretation of America’s history.