Do you like creme in your coffee and chocolate in your milk??
The Whitney museum was amazing for me. Kara Walker exhibit is not just a collection of art but is shown in such a way that its in your face. It is impossible for someone to simply walk through the pieces. They evoke anger, disgust, and many other feelings. But not apathy. One piece that struck me was a simple water color of a brown tree. The tree was simply drawn and the color was smudged, not staying within the boundaries of the tree. The paper also had writing on it. It said ” So I ask what is a positive ‘black’ image (besides a contradiction). Every image produced of ‘us’ is mediated- filtered through the grounds of years of misrepresenting, bitterness & suspicion, I will never fail (or cease) to DISMISS the black girl TV spokesmodel in all her benign black beauty for being an end- all in some ad exec’s pantheon of underrepresented groups. She is supposed to be read as ’see how far we’ve progressed without suggesting her earlier incarnation as whore, maids, mother earth’s struggle, weeping cause her baby done gone.”
A lot of Kara’s pieces were silhouettes, showing no faces or real detail to her work. This can be taken many ways. She could not be giving these figures faces, because specific features give identity and she is not trying to have one person “represent” everyone, she is just trying to show what happened to everyone. It could also signify how everything back then happened in the dark, people were aware of it but it wasn’t exposed. Something that struck me when I saw it was that even though everyone was the same color (black paper), I immediately knew who was supposed to be black because of certain features like thick lips and braids and their position of power. This exposed how stereotypes are instilled in me and I wasn’t even aware of it.
I will remember Kara Walker’s exhibit for a long time. She definitely got her point across.