The Arts in New York City

My reaction to the first piece of art I saw at the Whitney…
    “Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred Between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart by Kara Walker”- the first exhibition we see as we emerge from the elevators. A white wall is covered in contrasting in black silhouettes. The exaggerated, cartoonish figures give us an Alice in Wonderland -like feel. The first thing that struck me was the overall beauty of the exhibit. Then, as I looked closer, things started getting disturbing.
To the far left, there was a couple, a la “Gone with the Wind.” This looked like a romance between a gentleman and a lady until I realized that there was an extra pair of legs under the lady’s hoop skirt. I believe that the woman is most likely finding her sexual pleasure elsewhere. Then, there is a young black boy who offers a headless chicken to a topless black girl who floats on her back in the water.  I was perplexed by this image. I noted that her body seems to become a boat.  Also, human bodies float after death. This dehumanization of the black female body seems to be a central theme in all of these works.
A sculpture of a bust, or worse, a severed head of a white man looks at a young black girl on her knees performing fellatio on a white boy. To make matters worse, the white boy seems to be captivated by a black boy floating above him with genitalia larger than his body. Sexual experimentation seems rampant as many of the silhouettes are engaged in at least one sex act in the scene.
Finally, a black girl lifts her leg as two babies drop out of her and, all the while, she seems to be laughing and jumping for joy. The babies are obviously dead as we see their heads splash to the ground. This probably signifies the joy she feels from the fact that she is not bringing children into this rotten, disgusting bayou of sado-masochistic desire. In short, the miscarriages save other souls from the Hell that is the American South.

My Love… was a very interesting exhibit for me to step into. I have never been one to visit an art gallery on my own. This really was taking a big risk for me. I would probably have been better off visiting a more traditional gallery. However, as I haven’t visited galleries on my own before this, it is possible that I also had nothing to compare the exhibit to.

Just food for thought,

Priya