PRESENTING KARA WALKER’S ART: CASE STUDIES OF THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM
AND THE WALKER ART CENTER
By
Takenya A LaViscount
Submitted to the
Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences
o f American University
in Partial Fulfillment o f
the Requirements for the Degree of
Masters of Arts
In
Arts Management
Chair: Brett Ashley Crawfoi
Helen Li
Zpe Charttoi
fthe College o f Arts and Sciences
Date
2006
American University
Washington, DC 20016 AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY V)H
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 1437975
Copyright 2006 by LaViscount, Takenya A.
All rights reserved.
INFORMATION TO USERS
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.
UMI
UMI Microform 1437975 Copyright 2006 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © COPYRIGHT
By
Takenya A LaViscount
2006
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PRESENTING KARA WALKER’S ART: CASE STUDIES OF THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM
AND THE WALKER ART CENTER
BY
Takenya A LaViscount
ABSTRACT
Recognizing the controversial subject matter conveyed by Kara Walker’s artwork,
this thesis examines the differences in the framing of Walker’s work when presented by
museums devoted to art created by artists of African descent versus mainstream art
museums. Specifically, this thesis compares the presentation of Walker’s art to the public
by the Studio Museum in Harlem (SMH) and the Walker Art Center (WAC). SMH is an
accredited art museum that focuses on the presentation of art created by people of African
descent. WAC is a multidisciplinary contemporary art museum that presents art across
the spectrum of race, ethnicity, age and discipline. In addition to comparing these two art
institutions, this thesis also offers suggestions for how to present Walker’s controversial
art and create an environment that encourages dialogue about artistic intent, identity and
audience reception.
ii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to my thesis committee, which is
composed of a diverse group of remarkable women, each with her own unique talents. I
am in awe of Brett Ashley Crawford’s extensive knowledge of the performing and visual
arts sector. I am truly grateful for her guidance, encouraging words and warm persona
through out this endeavor. I admire Helen Langa’s knowledge of art history and her
feedback has been invaluable. I am also impressed by Zoe Charlton, a professor and artist
whose knowledge of both creating and critiquing art has been extremely helpful. It has
been such a pleasure working with these three creative intellectuals. Their input has been
crucial for the completion of my thesis. I would also like to thank all of the busy art
museum professionals who offered their help and took the time to participate in an
interview: Yasmil Raymond, Lynn Dierks, Barry Gaither, Shanta Scott and Lizzatta
LeFalle-Collins. Last but certainly not least, I am grateful for the love and support my
friends and family have given me. Without my parents and friends, who have always
encouraged me to pursue my dreams, I would not have been able to complete this project.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
iii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT...... ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... iii
LIST OF LLUSTRATIONS...... v
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION...... 1
2. SUBVERSIVE MAMMIES AND JEZEBELS...... 19
3. THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM’S PRESENTATION OF KARA WALKER’S ART...... 50
4. THE WALKER ART CENTER’S PRESENTATION OF KARA WALKER’S ART...... 65
5. CONCLUSION ...... 88
BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 97
iv
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure Page
1. United Colors of Benetton, Breast Feeding, 1989...... 25
2. Kara Walker, Untitled (Destroying the Terror), 1994...... 31
3. Kara Walker. John Brown. 1996...... 33
4. Thomas Satterwhite Noble, John Brown’s Blessings, 1867 ...... 35
5. Kara Walker, The End of the Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven, 1995...... 42
6. Kara Walker, The End of the Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau ofEva in Heaven, 1995 (detail)...... 45
7. Kara Walker, The End of the Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau ofEva in Heaven, 1995 (detail)...... 47
8. Kara Walker, Endless Conundrum, An African Anonymous Adventuress, 2001...... 77
9. Kara Walker,Endless Conundrum, An African Anonymous Adventuress, 2001 (detail)...... 79
v
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
The actual struggle was then, as it is now, about hegemonic control of black representation. Black authority was and still is characterized by knowledge of vernacular (i.e “authenticity”) and adherence to a moral code that is organized around a proprietary relationship to the black body and, by extension, its image.
CoCo Fusco, The Bodies That Were Not Ours and Other Writings
Kara Walker, born in 1969, is a black female artist. Walker creates paper
silhouettes that portray slavery-era, Jim Crow-era, and minstrel stereotypes used to
categorize black people. Walker’s artistic creations also include paintings, drawings,
animated films and performance art that depict similar racially-charged subject matter
and commentary about United States history. Her illustrated stereotypes include
“mammies”, “jezebels”, “uncle toms”, “mandingos”, and “pickaninnies” among others.
Walker’s artwork illustrates violent, sexuality explicit, blunt subject matter that forces the
spectator to contemplate slavery’s crude and brutal past. Her art includes obscene
Victorian melodramas with fictional black and white characters engaged in such taboo
acts as bestiality, sodomy, incest, fetishism, and the excretion of bodily fluids. Irony,
humor and masochism merge to reveal the intricate effects of race and sex-based
oppression on our psyche.
1
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2
A spectator of Walker’s postmodern aesthetic has to ponder the ways in which
modem day perceptions mould our understanding of the past and how the past has shaped
our present identity. When exhibited in museums and galleries Walker’s silhouette
installations are intentionally overwhelmingly large. Usually, her large-scale paper
silhouettes are placed directly onto the wall. The spectator is placed in a position where
s/he comes in contact with his or her own horrific shadow. Walker asserts that these
fictive stereotypes lurk in our subconscious and manipulate our perceptions of racial
identity, gender identity, and history.1
Walker is a controversial figure. The contention that revolves around Walker is
the result of where Walker’s artwork is displayed, her reliance on derogatory
iconography, her risky verbal statements regarding race and gender identity, and the high
market value of her art work. Recognizing the controversial subject matter conveyed by
Walker’s artwork, a question arises — are there differences in the framing of Walker’s
work when presented by museums devoted to art created by artists of African descent
versus mainstream art museums? This study provides a comparison of two art museums
and their presentation of Walker’s art to the public; The Studio Museum in Harlem
(SMH), and the Walker Art Center (WAC). SMH is an art museum, located in New York
City, which focuses on the presentation of art created by people of African descent. WAC
is a multidisciplinary contemporary art museum, located in Minneapolis, which does not
focus on the presentation of art created by a particular racial / ethnic group. In 2003,
SMH provided a solo exhibition for Walker entitled Kara Walker: Excavated from the
Heart o f a Black Negress. In 2005 WAC included Walker’s art within Quartet, a group
1 Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art o f Kara Walker (London: Duke University Press, 2004), 39-40, 43.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3
exhibition that also included artwork created by Matthew Barney, Robert Gober and
Sherrie Levine. An examination of these two exhibitions reveals that SMH and WAC had
different approaches to the presentation of Walker’s controversial artwork.
Walker received her B.F.A from Atlanta College of Art and her M.F.A in painting
and printmaking from the Rhode Island School of design. She began exhibiting her
artwork in 1991 and her career has continued to flourish. A recipient of prominent grants
and awards, Walker became the youngest visual artist to date to receive the MacArthur
Foundation “Genius Grant,” at age twenty-eight. In 1997 her art was featured in the
Whitney Biennial. Walker’s highly successful career includes numerous solo exhibitions
at prestigious museums and art galleries in the United States and abroad. Walker’s art has
been featured at the Guggenheim Museum, the Modem Museum of Art (MoMA), the San
Francisco Museum of Modem Art (SFMoMA), the Drawing Center in New York City,
the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, the Hayward Gallery, the Barbican
Art Gallery, and the Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles among other renowned art
institutions. Walker received the “Lucelia Artist Award”, a Smithsonian Institution grant
in the amount of $25,000 in 2004.4 As of 2005, Walker’s artwork has been exhibited in
over fifty museums. Walker is a professor at Columbia University in New York City.
Walker represents a generational shift in the way black artists have traditionally
addressed racial and gender oppression. She is part of a postmodern generation of black
artists that are not afraid to draw upon satirical racial and gender-based imagery in order
2 Juliette Bowles, "Extreme Times Call for Extreme Eleroes," The International Review o f A frican American Art 14, no. 3 (1997): 3. 3 Kristina Podesva and Alison Pruchansky, "Exhibition History," Karain Walker, Narratives o f a Negress, ed. Ian Berry, Darby English, and Mark Reinhardt (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003), 185-189. 4 Blake Gopnik, "Kara Walker Wins Smithsonian Artist Award,”The Washington Post, 15 April 2004, C05.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4
to illustrate the culture and history of the United States. Walker is not alone in her
reliance upon minstrel show caricatures. Her artwork has been compared to other black
postmodern artists that have implemented minstrelsy into his or her artistic creations,
such as Michael Ray Charles and Ellen Gallagher.5 Walker, however, has received the
most attention and institutional support when compared to her contemporaries. In
comparison, other black postmodern artists have not been exhibited in as many museums
and galleries as Walker and have not received the prestigious grants and awards that
Walker has received. The market value of Walker’s art is significantly higher than her
contemporaries. While Walker’s large artworks have sold for as much as $225,000, the
price of Charles’ artworks have ranged between $10,000 to $40,000.6
Importantly, Walker’s celebrity status within the mainstream art establishment,
which she cultivated at a young age, is a subject of serious concern among some black
artists that fought hard to have their art recognized, appreciated and displayed by the
mainstream art establishment during the 1960s and the 1970s. Artist activist groups such
as Spiral, the Artworkers Coalition, the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, and Where
We At, a black feminist art group formed by artist Faith Ringgold, publicly called
attention to institutionalized racism and sexism within the mainstream art community.
Unlike Walker, most of the artists that were members of these activist groups blatantly
illustrated Afro-centric and / or black feminist themes within their artwork.7 Some
members of these activist art groups have been astonished and offended by the wide
5 Bowles, 3-7. 6 Shawn-Marie Garrett, "Return of the Repressed,"Theater 32, no. 2 (2002): 29.; Eileen Kinsella, "The Rise of African American Art "ARTnews 102, no. 8 (2003): 123. 7 Curtia Lynne James, “Contemporary African American Art in New York Galleries and Museums: Patterns of Exclusion and Inclusion in the 1990s” (Masters of Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2001), 29-30, 32-34.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. spread praise Walker’s art has received from the mainstream art establishment. Among a
generation of black artists that were involved in major political and artistic movements
(the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, the Black Power Movement, the
Civil Rights Movement, the Feminist Movement) her work has been seen as disgracefully
g confirming ugly stereotypes that support white supremacy.
The presentation of Walker’s art highlights important conundrums within the
visual arts sector. The controversy that has erupted highlights the power struggle within
the arts sector regarding who has control over the display of the black body and how the
black body is displayed. The exhibition of Walker’s art highlights issues of racial
exclusion and inclusion and makes obvious the ways in which programming, staff
diversity, funding, marketing, and audience development are intimately bound together,
affecting each element of an art institution. The controversial content displayed in
Walker’s art has instigated a dialogue about which black artists receive exhibit
opportunities from art museums within the United States, why certain groups of black
artists have been left behind to dwell in obscurity, and who has the institutional power to
choose which black artists will be exhibited in museums. Arts administrators encounter
all of these multifaceted subjects when Walker’s art is displayed.
Betye Saar, a black artist known for her involvement in the Black Arts Movement
is one of Walker’s most vocal and public denouncers. Her statements about the display of
Walker’s art echo the concerns of some black artists from her generation. When
8 Bowles, 4-5,12-13; Eungie Joo, “Crisis to Collapse: The Racialized Subject in Contemporary American Art.” (Dissertation, University of California, 2002), 122-126; Karen C.C. Dalton, "The Past Is Prologue but Is Parody and Pastiche Progress? A Conversation.,"The International Review of African American Art 14, no. 3 (1997): 17-29.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6
discussing the mainstream art sector’s acceptance of postmodern black art that
incorporates minstrelsy Saar has exclaimed:
How do young persons just a few years out of school get a show at a major museum? The whole arts establishment picked their work up and put it at the head of the class. This is the danger, not the artists themselves. This is like closet racism. It relieves them of the responsibility to show other artists.9
Saar has tried to lessen the amount of institutional support Walker has received. In fact,
she attempted to deny Walker the MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant in the form of a
letter campaign. Saar mailed two hundred letters of protest to artists and scholars. These
letters included a reproduction of Walker’s large silhouette installation The End of the
Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven. Saar never made the
effort to contact Walker directly.10
Barry Gaither, the Director of The Museum of the National Center of Afro
American Artists (NCAAA) located in Boston, has chosen not to display Walker’s art at
the institution. Gaither is strongly against censorship and does agree that Walker should
have the freedom to express herself; however, he is bothered by the mainstream art
sectors acceptance of stereotypical imagery. During an interview Gaither explained that
he considers Walker to be a “.. .remarkably talented artist with tremendous technical
dexterity” but when he addressed the content portrayed in Walkers art, the art sectors
response to her work and the African American audience, and Gaither also asked the
question:
Why should African Americans who have only rarely found themselves celebrated in major white museums revel in seeing on the walls of those institutions images of themselves eating excrement? 11
9 Betye Saar quoted in Bowles, 4. 10 Eungie Joo, “Crisis to Collapse: The Racialized Subject in Contemporary American Art.” (Dissertation, University o f California, 2002), 112-116, 128. 11 Takenya LaViscount, "Email Interview with Barry Gaither," (Washington DC: 2006).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7
Gaither refers to the mainstream art museum sector by describing these
institutions as “white museums.” His usage of the label “white museums” highlights the
pertinent issue of staff diversity within the mainstream art museum sector and the
audience that attends institutions of this nature. Tuliza Fleming is an African American
curator at the Dayton Art Institute (DAI). Her article “The ‘Museum Baby’ Grows Up:
Being a Curator of Color in a Monochromatic Art Museum World,” discusses the lack of
racial diversity within the mainstream art museum sector. Fleming expresses her concern
that she might be the only African American chief curator who oversees an American art
department within a mainstream art museum. According to Fleming, she is one out of
only eleven African American curators that are working at mainstream art museums in
the United States. While the subject of diversity has been discussed within the museum
community for over thirty years, very little progress has been made in increasing the
racial diversity of staff who work for mainstream museums and the audience that these
institutions attract. Fleming explains:
Art museums do not attract an audience representative of minority groups. This is especially pertinent when you consider that the nation’s largest, most esteemed, and most influential museums generally are located in urban areas with large minority populations... .U.S art museums must look beyond merely attracting a large number of visitors and more critically at what art and culture really means - to us and to our communities.... Understanding these communities - their differences and their similarities - and their connections to our national art museums is key to improving the visitor and educational experience for all Americans.12
Lonnie Bunch, the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American
History and Culture agrees with Fleming’s assessments - if museums are going to attract
12 Tuliza Fleming, "The "Museum Baby" Grows Up: Being a Curator in a Monochromatic Art Museum World," American Association of Museums: Museum News 84, no. 4 (2005): 34.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8
a diverse audience, they must first diversify their staff, board and volunteers, generating
an environment that reflects multiple perspectives about art and culture.13
Yasmil Raymond, a curator at the Walker Art Center (WAC) who worked on the
presentation of Walker’s art in Quartet , has an assessment of the mainstream art sector
that differs from some art administrators and artists who are worried about the inclusion
of art created by black artists. When asked during an interview about the concerns that
Betye Saar and Howardina Pindell have publicly expressed regarding the display of
Walker’s art, Raymond responded by stating “There is a fine line between censorship and
concern.” She continued to explain that Pindell’s and Saar’s comments cross this line and
that their complaints urge museums to censor Walker’s artistic vision. According to
Raymond, over the past ten years the inclusion of art created black artists has increased
dramatically within the art museum sector. Raymond does not believe that art museums
with a poor history of exhibiting art created by black artists should avoid displaying
Walker’s art and in her opinion, the mainstream acceptance of Walker’s art has improved
the careers of other black artists, heightening their exposure to the public.14
Raymond is correct in asserting that Pindell and Saar are very uncomfortable with
the content illustrated in Walker’s art, however, other aspects of her statement are at odds
with differing comments that have been made by other museum professionals who are
apprehensive about the mainstream art community’s embrace of Walker’s art. Kinshasha
Holmen Conwill, the former director of The Studio Museum in Harlem has exclaimed
that “Only a couple of black artists are let into the doors of the museums and galleries.”15
Museums such as the National Gallery of Art, located in Washington DC, support
13 Lonnie Bunch quoted in Fleming, 35. 14 Takenya LaViscount, "Phone Interview with Yasmil Raymond," (Washington DC: 2006). 15 Kinshasha Holman Conwill quoted in Garrett: 29.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9
ConwilPs claim. The National Gallery of Art waited until 2003 to present their first solo
exhibition for a black artist.16 Raymond describes the mainstream acceptance of Walker’s
art as a reality that has helped to boost the careers of a diverse group of black artists; but
Corinne Jennings, the director of Kenkeleba Gallery in New York City, believes
otherwise. According to Jennings “In some ways the contemporary art scene is worse
because people who use derogatory images, often originally created by white artists, can
find quick support.”17
While the content portrayed in Walker’s artwork has generated a lot of ardent
discussion within the arts sector, her blunt commentary about her own internalized
oppression during interviews has also created an intellectual and artistic divide within the
black arts community and the contemporary art community at large. Her public
statements regarding contemporary race and gender identity are shocking and can come
across as careless. It can appear as if Walker is publicly performing a character in one of
her antebellum melodramas pictured on museum and gallery walls. Walker has explained
that her artistic creations represent her “inner plantation.” She has publicly admitted to a
personal identification with the slave mistresses that are depicted in her artwork and has
connected her own experiences of racial and gender-based abuse to the images portrayed
in her work.18 According to an interview in Flash Art, Walker received threatening letters
from the Ku Klux Klan when she was engaged in interracial relationships while living in
Atlanta. Walker explains:
I figured out I was a milestone in people’s sexual experience - to have made it with a black woman was one of those things to check off on your list of personal
16 Blake Gopnik, "Romare Bearden, Rain or Shine,"Washington Post 23 Sept 2003, C05. 17 Corinne Jennings quoted in Kinsella: 123. 18 Lisa E Farrington,Creating Their Own Image: The History o f African-American Women Artists (New York Oxford University Press, 2005), 227-228.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10
sexual accomplishments. That already has a slightly masochistic effect: to have just been the body for somebody’s life story. I guess that’s when I decided to offer up my side-long glances: to be a slave just a little bit....So I used this mythic, fictional, kind of slave character to justify myself, or reinvent myself in some other situations.19
Statements of this nature have been used to justify the arguments of Betty Saar,
Howardina Pindell, and bell hooks. These three respected cultural scholars and artists
have accused Walker of selling out to racist fantasy.
In addition to the complexities that arise from Walker’s public persona, other
multifaceted concerns have emerged regarding the role of Walker’s art within the art
market. The high market value of her artwork and the race of the group that typically
purchases Walker’s artwork is a subject of distress among a significant number of
scholars. People of African descent usually do not buy Walker’s artwork. As a rule
Caucasian spectators purchase her work. The price of her artwork can be compared to the
high market value of historically racist artifacts depicting minstrel show imagery from the
nineteenth and early twentieth century. Critics have expressed serious concern about the
commodification of black stereotypes.71
In 1999 Walker’s installation,A Means to an End... A Shadow Drama in Five
Acts, was pulled at the last minuet from the Detroit Institute of the Arts. The museum
director was concerned about audience reception. 77 Scholars, critics and artists have
questioned the reception of Walker’s art depending on the audience viewing it. Walker’s
art may not have the same effect on most black spectators compared to a lot of white
19 Jerry Saltz, "III Will and Desire,"Flash Art 29, no. 191 (1996): 86. 20 Joo, 119-120; Michael Corris and Robert Hobbs, "Reading Black through White in the Work of Kara Walker,"Art History 26, no. 3 (2003): 426. 21 Glenda Rossana Carpio, “Critical Memory in the Fiction of Slavery” (Dissertation, University of California, 2002), 141-143. 22 Carpio, 135.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11
spectators. This becomes painfully obvious when black patrons can not be found for
Walker’s artwork. Depending on the individual and their understanding of the
complexities of race, they may not understand that Walker encourages the spectator to
critically examine their understanding of race-based identity shaped by the past and the
present simultaneously.
Thus, with these varying concerns regarding the presentation of Walker’s art, one
begins to wonder if the meaning of her artwork is altered when she is displayed in a
museum that focuses solely on art created by black people versus mainstream art
museums that have only recently started to display art created by black people and are
lacking black art within their permanent collections? During the last thirty years the
number of racial or ethnic identity based museums has grown dramatically. The America
Association of Museums estimates that in the United States, twenty six percent of
museums that were scheduled to open between 1998 and 2000 were museums that
specialized in the cultural and historical interpretation and presentation of specific ethnic
or racial groups. According to Latina cultural theorist Karen Davalos, mainstream
museums have consistently failed to adequately integrate objects created by people of
color within their exhibitions and collections. In her article “Exhibiting Mestizaje: The
Poetics and Experience of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum” Davalos explains:
The public [mainstream] museum does not collect our histories and experiences, particularly not our art. It does not categorize our cultural products as ‘American’ but marginalizes them, even placing them in the hallways and other makeshift galleries.24
23 Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Carl Grodach, "National Narratives in Maritime and Ethnic Museums. Displaying and Celebrating The "Other": A Study of the Mission, Scope, and Roles of Ethnic Museums in Los Angeles " The Public Historian 26, no. 4 (2004): 53-54. 24 Karen Davalos quoted in Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Carl Grodach, 54.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12
Most leading contemporary art museums have just begun to increase the number of
exhibitions that showcase African American art. For example, in 2001, Walker received a
solo exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City; yet,
according to research completed by Howardena Pindell and Curtia Lynne James, the
Guggenheim failed to provide any solo exhibitions for African American artists
throughout the 1980s and the 1990s.25
Significantly, mainstream contemporary art museums have enthusiastically
showcased Walker’s art to the public, museums that specialize in the display and
interpretation of black art and culture have avoided the inclusion of Walker’s art within
their exhibitions. The disparity between the percentage of mainstream art museums that
have exhibited Walker’s art compared to the number of identity-based museums that have
shown her work is striking. In 2003, SMH became the first museum that focuses on the
display of art created by people pf African descent to exhibit Walker’s art. 0 f \From 2005
through 2006, the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), located in San Francisco,
premiered Linkages and Themes in the African Diaspora: Selections from the Eileen
Harris Norton and Peter Norton Contemporary Art Collections, a group exhibition that
included Walker’s art. With the exception of the SMH and the MoAD, there have not
been any other black art or black historical museums that have featured Walker’s work to
date. Lowery Stokes Sims, the director of the SMH, has explained the exhibition choices
the museum staff has made by stating “Anything can be shown in a museum. The
25 James, 51. 26 Shaw, 123. 27 The Museum of the African Diaspora,Past Exhibitions [Website] (2006, accessed 6 May 2006); available from http://www.moadsf.org/exhibits/past/linkages/index.html.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13
question is how the museum wants to position itself in the larger art world. We want to
7o enlarge the discourse on African-American artists.”
The role of identity-based museums within the United States has been a topic of
debate as the percentage of museums that can be placed within this category continue to
rise. Advocates of identity-based museums have argued that museums of this nature have
the potential to serve as an intermediary between the racial/ethnic group that the museum
represents and other racial/ ethnic groups, forging a crucial dialogue on issues of identity
and experience within the United States. Opponents have warned that identity-based
museums have the dangerous potential to increase fragmentation among racial and ethnic
groups within the US. 29
Often, identity-based museums are expected to fulfill certain obligations that are
not necessarily associated with mainstream museums. A significant number of identity-
based museums have mission statements that encompass social, political and community
engagement goals that extend beyond the presentation of culturally significant objects.
While renowned mainstream institutions are expected to showcase exhibitions of the
utmost quality, identity-based museums can be expected to produce supreme exhibitions
that also participate in the communal uplift of the identity group that is featured within
the museum.30
It is not uncommon for racial/ethnic-based museums to reside within the
community the museum represents. Racial/ethnic museums are frequently considered to
be “advocates for ethnic communities, often becoming directly involved in community
28 Rhonda Roumani and Columbia University,Portrait o f a Museum (2002, accessed 1 June 2005); available from http://www.jm.columbia.edu/studentwork/race/2002/art-rhonda.shtml. 29 Loukaitou-Sideris and Grodach: 51-54. 30 Ibid, 55.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11 ( development, political action, and protest.” Similar to Walker, SMH is rebellious in
nature and the institution breaks with tradition. According to Sims, “The Studio Museum
is a museum within a community, but it is not a community museum.” The gentrification
of Harlem continues at a speedy pace. There are members of the African American and
artistic community that are concerned about the museum’s role within this urban reality.
Even though the number of art galleries in Harlem has increased dramatically, there are
members of the local community that share Kira Lynn Harris’s concern. Harris, a former
artist in resident at SMH explains “The last thing people want to see is that Harlem is
becoming like Greenwich Village where people talk about black history, but there are no
1 1 black people to be found. The way gentrification goes that’s a totally a possibility.”
Black artists and museums that concentrate on the history and culture of people of
African descent face similar expectations from a significantly large segment of the black
community. Both black artists and black museums are expected to contribute to black
communal empowerment. In order to combat derogatory, hegemonic definitions of
blackness promoted by mainstream society within the United States, black cultural
leaders such as W.E.B Du Bois and Alain Locke publicly asserted that art created by
black artists should instill black communal pride. Locke’s legendary text, The New
Negro: Voices o f the Harlem Renaissance, published in 1925, urged all black artists to
create art that would celebrate positivistic forms of black identity while simultaneously
proving the fallacy of painful, racist stereotypes that proliferated within our nation’s
cultural landscape. At present, derogatory images of people of African descent are still
shown by mainstream media. Due to this reality, a significant portion of the black
31 Ibid, 55. 32 Lowery Stokes Sims and Kira Lynn Harris are quoted in Roumani, 4.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15
community that has lived through the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Empowerment
Movement, the Feminist Movement, and even younger members of the black community
continue to expect that black artists will promote racial empowerment. Walker’s art
clearly breaks with this tradition. Her blatant disregard for communal expectation maybe
one of the main reasons that black museums have avoided including Walker’s art within
^•3 their exhibitions.
Importantly, SMH’s display of Walker’s art calls attention to the lack of risk a
significant number of other black museums are willing to take. SMH and MoAD are the
only black museums that have displayed Walker’s art. Although Walker’s art is
controversial, black museums are one of the safest environments to discuss Walker’s art.
According to historian Faith Davis Ruffins, black museums were originally utilized as a
communal space where different ideologies about race could be debated. When Walker’s
artwork is not displayed within black cultural institutions, museum administrators are
omitting a generation of postmodern black artists that incorporate minstrelsy into their
artwork. Black museums that refuse to present Walker’s art have failed to include the
diversity of thought and experience that exists within the black artistic community.
SMH and WAC are both institutions that are willing to take programmatic risks.
WAC has developed a reputation as one of the most cutting edge contemporary art
museums within the US. The museum does not shy away from the presentation of the
avant-garde. The staffs dedication to the presentation of progressive art has led them to
turn down significant sums of state funding in order to avoid any incidents reminiscent of
the “culture wars” and the NEA controversies during the late 1980s and early 1990s.34
33 Shaw, 27-29, 103-123. 34 Hugh Eakin, "Crowds? No, Thanks. Same for Grants," The New York Times, 20 March 2005, 30.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Within Quartet, WAC presented Walker along with three other artists that the
museum has acquired for their collection. The timing of Quartet was important. Quartet
was featured as one of the main exhibitions displayed for the premiere of the WAC’s new
architectural addition in the spring of 2005. Unlike SMH, WAC did not situate Walker’s
art within a black aesthetic. Instead, her art was displayed with art work created by three
contemporary Caucasian artists that have explored a range of topics including sexuality,
fantasy, mythology, and appropriation. The exhibition marks the fourth time that Walker
has been presented at the WAC. Quartet featured her new artistic experimentation. While
museum attendees could view Walker’s legendary silhouettes placed directly on the wall
in the form of a mural, they were also exposed to a new animated film created by the
artist and a selection of her drawings. 35
A comparison of the SMH, and WAC will illustrate the different techniques that
art museums have used in order to handle the presentation of extremely sensitive and
complex artistic subject matter. The fact Walker has received numerous solo exhibitions
denotes that Walker is a highly sought after artist with an accomplished career. However,
a group exhibition that can allow the viewer to situate Walker’s art within a broader
dialogue about art work created by black artists may be one of the best options for art
museums that do not have a substantial history of presenting black artists. While
mainstream contemporary art museums should not be discouraged from presenting
Walker’s art, the following thesis aims to offer suggestions for creating an environment
that encourages dialogue about artistic intent, identity and audience reception.
35 Walker Art Center, Walker Art Center Current Exhibitions [Website] (2005, accessed 5 June 2005); available from http://visualarts.walkerart.org/detail.wac7icUl 525&title=Current%2...
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17
In order to accomplish this study, I have analyzed the language used by museum
professionals, art critics and the press to describe Walker and her art in the two separate
exhibitions. I have critiqued the public framing of Walkers’ art and analyzed the
marketing materials that were used to publicize her exhibitions at each museum
compared. I have also analyzed the educational materials that were available for
exhibition attendees including exhibition wall text, catalogues, the museum’s website and
other technological devices that were offered to the viewer. In addition to the objective
analysis of public materials, I have interviewed relevant museum professionals. Published
interviews of noteworthy museum professionals have been used in the place of in-person
interviews when a face to face interview was not possible due to the demanding
schedules of museum professionals.
To aid my analysis I have included theories proposed by art scholars, art critics,
and museum professionals, particularly with respect to an aesthetic critique of Walker’s
art. Furthermore, I have also included an analysis of how art museums have addressed
identity politics, the inclusion and exclusion of black art within the museum sector, and
sources that discuss black feminist art. To further the investigation of my question, I have
also reviewed books and periodicals that provide theoretical discussions about some of
the unique problems museums that focus solely on the presentation of art created by
people of African descent have faced. Finally, I studied sources that discuss the history of
the creation of museums that focus solely on the presentation of black art, history and
culture.
Chapter two provides an analysis of Walker’s art. Within this chapter I explain the
way in which Walker’s art moves beyond the act of simply mimicking stereotypes.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18
Instead, Walker’s subversive illustrations scrutinize racial and gender stereotypes and
expose the influence stereotypes have on our ways of seeing the “other.” In chapter three
I will impart a description of the way in which SMH has presented Walker’s art and in
chapter four I will critique of the presentation of Walker’s art at WAC. Chapters three
and four are devoted to each museum, the different techniques that each museum has
used in order to frame Walker’s artistic vision for the public, and the messages that the
museum staff sought to convey to the public by presenting her work. Each chapter
provides background information about the creation of each museum and the changes
each museum has undergone as time has progressed. After each museum has been
analyzed separately, the conclusion of this thesis will compare the presentation of Kara
Walker’s art at SMH and WAC and will also offer suggestions for how contemporary art
museums can improve the presentation of Walker’s art.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 2
SUBVERSIVE MAMMIES AND JEZEBELS
The stereotype erases a group’s varied human relationships and desires and thus erases the actual complex social and psychological relationships that turn groups of people into reifications or fetishes. The stereotype condenses the resulting distortions into a kind of objectivity, or object form, that manages what can’t be managed otherwise.” Avery F Gordon, "More on Positive and Negative Images: The Case of Kara Walker, Artist," in Keeping Good Time: Reflections on Knowledge, Power, and People
Kara Walker’s art displays a brutal rehashing of both historical and present-day
race and gender relations. Her art provides a harsh depiction of past and present race and
gender identity. Walker’s artistic works have taken many forms including her legendary
silhouette installations, drawings, paintings and collage. She does not limit herself to
static forms. Walker has used animation and performance art as a medium to visualize the
way in which Americans have consciously or unconsciously interwoven racial and
gendered stereotypes into their skewed understanding of the “other.”
In Walker’s art, no one is left unscathed. White men, white women, black men
and black women all receive Walker’s criticism. In her seductive illustrations truth and
fiction, past and present merge as the viewer is pulled into a visually stunning nightmare.
19
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20
Importantly, Walker incorporates an honest look at herself and her own insecurities
about her racial and gender identity. Her personal memories involving racially charged
conflicts and the traumas that have resulted from these occurrences infuse her work.
Walker’s artistic testimonials do more than simply mimic slavery stereotypes and
minstrel shows. Her artwork maintains a subversive stance. Walker moves beyond the act
of reproducing race and gender stereotypes - she interrogates many race and gender
constructs that have saturated both United States and international culture.
Motherhood, black femininity and sexuality are themes that Walker frequently
explores within her artwork. Walker’s artistic creations often display the full spectrum of
slavery and minstrelsy stereotypes including “sambos,” “pickaninnies,” “mandingos” and
other designations that were used to describe people of African descent. Through her
depiction of the “mammy” and the “jezebel” stereotype, however, Walker is able to
analyze how her own sense of self is connected to a complex history of race and gender
oppression in the United States. Not surprisingly, the messages conveyed through the
illustration of the “mammy” and “jezebel” are her most subversive. The inclusion of
these two characters allows Walker to illustrate the ways in which slavery and minstrel
show stereotypes have had an adverse effect on our understanding of black femininity
and sexuality.
Feminist and African American Studies scholar Patricia Hill Collins provides an
analysis of the historical and contemporary stereotypes that have been used to control
black women and skew our perception of black female sexuality within the United States.
In her text Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21
Empowerment Collins explains that the sexual objectification of the black body during
the transatlantic slave trade made it blatantly clear that people of African descent had no
claim over their own physicality. During this time the black body was considered to be
oversexed by nature. Historically, racist and sexist Western mythology has symbolically
associated the black body with erotic taboos and sexual indecency.
In her text, Collins explains that the “mammy” stereotype and the “jezebel”
stereotype are interrelated. Whereas the “mammy” stereotype was defined as a woman of
African descent that did not fit narrow, Eurocentric beauty standards and was therefore
devoid of any sexual impulses, the “jezebel” stereotype assumed that young black women
have animalistic, overblown sexual instincts. Collins argues that black women were
placed in one of the two categories. Both categories served the purpose of justifying the
sexual abuse and economic exploitation of the black body. The “jezebel” stereotype was
used to justify the rape of numerous women of African descent during slavery and the
“mammy” stereotype was an economically efficient model that rationalized black female
domestic servitude.
During the slave trade and minstrel era a “mammy” was depicted as a sexually
undesirable black female servant, firmly associated with domestic activities within the
homes of established Caucasians. In Colored Pictures: Race and Visual Representation,
African and African American art history professor Michael D. Harris explains that
according to American hegemonic thought:
36 Patricia Hill Collins, "Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images," Blackin Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 2000), 12-1A. 37 Ibid., 74, 81-82, 84.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22
the mammy was the ultimate servant; the most common image of a mammy was the opposite of idealized white womanhood, which itself was a male fantasy. She was large, dark-skinned, usually smiling, and covered from neck to ankle with clothing. She wore a bandanna and an apron, both of which signified that she was a worker doing cleaning, laundry, or cooking. And she was a myth.
The “mammy” figure has been depicted as a black female wet nurse, raising the children
of the white family she works for and happily establishing harmony in a white household
through her domestic labor. Her physical appearance, which was the opposite of the
dominant white definition of female beauty, raised white women above black women in
the United States social hierarchy. The “mammy” myth also provided an anti
miscegenation message. Her image masked any desire that white men could have felt
toward black women because it was assumed that a white male would never find a
woman of this nature physically attractive. Mythically, the “mammy” was a soothing
presence instead of a potential hazard within a white, patriarchal family. 39
Geographically, the Southern area of the United Sates has a well-documented
history of publicly celebrating “mammies.” In 1910 the Black Mammy Memorial
Institute was established in Atlanta. The Institute provided training for young black
women in the cultivation of domestic skills. In 1923 the Daughters of the Confederate
lobbied Congress to approve a site in the Capitol for the placement of a “mammy” bronze
monument.40 Moreover, the “mammy” stereotype has factored into the subconscious,
moving beyond the confines of the Southern culture. Aunt Jemima is an example of a
recognizable “mammy” that most people in the United States have been exposed to
38 Michael D Harris, "Aunt Jemima, the Fantasy Black Mammy/Servant,"Colored in Pictures: Race and Visual Representation (North Carolina: The University North o f North Carolina Press, 2003), 92-93. 39 Ibid., 101. 40 Ibid., 92.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23
through popular culture and commerce. Aunt Jemima was also referred to as
“handkerchief head.” She was often illustrated with a handkerchief, a symbol
communicating domestic service, which covered her hair and made her look sexually
undesirable.41 Aunt Jemima was a popular minstrel show character and in 1889, Chris L.
Rutt and Charles G. Underwood used this character to promote their instant pancake mix.
She quickly became a well-known, financially successful trademark for their pancake
mix company. In 1926, Rutt and Underwood sold their product and trademark to Quaker
Oats 42 Aunt Jemima’s name and image is still associated with the company’s instant
pancakes.43 Hattie McDaniel, an African American actress, won an Oscar for her
portrayal of a “mammy” in the iconic film Gone With the Wind.44
The “mammy” stereotype is still imbedded in the our subconscious.
Contemporary images of “mammies” may not look like an exact replica of the minstrel
show character created in 1889; however, current depictions of the “mammy” stereotype
do communicate the same message. Although Quaker Oats products no longer show Aunt
Jemima with a handkerchief on her head, the company still relies on the image of a black
woman as a happy, non-threatening, asexual, domestic servant in order to sell their
pancake products. Furthermore, the “mammy” stereotype has also become a global icon.
41 Donald Bogle, "Black Beginnings: From Uncle Tom's Cabin to the Birth of a Nation " in Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video, ed. Valerie Smith (New Jersey: Rutgers University, 1997), 18. 42 The Museum o f Public Relations, The Advertiser's Holy Trinity: Aunt Jemima, Rastus, and Uncle Ben [Webpage] ( 2006, accessed 25 March); available from http://www.prmuseum.com/kendrix/trinity.html.; The Quaker Oats Company,Aunt Jemima [Webpage] (2006, accessed 25 March); available from http:// www.auntj emima. com/. 43 The Quaker Oats Company, (accessed). 44 Harris, 94.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24
Trans-national corporations and the pervasive distribution of United States culture
have smoothly disseminated slavery’s stereotypes, including the “mammy”. In 1989,
Benetton, a popular clothing franchise, released a controversial print advertisement
entitled Breast Feeding. Breast Feeding displayed a black woman nursing a white baby.
The advertisement presented historical “mammy” motifs, including an emphasis on the
black model’s dark skin, which was juxtaposed against a pale, white baby. The only
section of the black woman’s body that is included in the ad is her chest. The black
woman is wearing a Benetton sweater left open in order to expose her breasts, one of
which is covered by the baby she is nursing. The advertisement did not include the full
body of the black model. Within Benetton’s ad, the black female breast becomes a
symbol that represents white sustenance by a black other. Breast Feeding implies that the
black woman’s body is not her own, but a vehicle for white nurturance. In their text The
Black Female Body: A Photographic History, art historian and African American studies
scholar Deborah Willis and artist Carla Williams discuss the Benetton ad controversy.
Willis and Williams explain that:
Although the ad campaign was conceived to foster the notion of racial harmony, the image of a black woman as nursemaid to a white child stirred up painful memories for many viewers and positioned the black female body once again in the role of nurturing mother to white people. Benetton ad campaigns have frequently used the opposition between black and white skin to sell their products. This iconic and ironic image openly and unabashedly evokes the historical mammy.45
45 Deborah Willis and Carla Williams, "The Cultural Body,"The in Black Female Body, a Photographic History (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002), 133.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25
Figure. 1. United Colors of Benetton, Breast Feeding, 1989. Illustration courtesy of Benetton Group. Reprinted from, Press Area Image Gallery - Institutional Campaigns [Website] (United Colors of Benetton, 8 May 2005, accessed 3 June 2006); available from http://press.benettongroup.com/ben en/image gallery/campaigns/?branch id=1109.
Benetton received complaints from African Americans, however, the
advertisement also garnered international acclaim. Breast Feeding received awards in
Italy, Austria, Denmark, France, and Holland. Significantly, out of all of Benetton’s
advertisements, Breast Feeding has received the most awards.46 Thus, it seems, the image
of the “mammy” continues to be a source of comfort in certain sectors of the United
States and abroad.
The “jezebel” stereotype is the opposite of the “mammy” stereotype. A “jezebel”
was considered to be a sexually aggressive black woman who would encourage white
men to engage in interracial sexual activity.47 Sexual relationships between white men
and black women were a societal taboo, so while the “mammy” was considered to be a
household comfort within a patriarchal, white family, the “jezebel” was deemed a societal
threat. As Harris explains:
46 Ibid, 134. 47 Michael D Harris, "Jezebel, Olympia, and the Sexualized Woman,"Colored in Pictures: Race and Visual Representation (North Carolina: The University North o f North Carolina Press, 2003), 135.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26
the notion of the sexualized black woman had no place in polite society, especially as symbolized in visual expression. The renegade sexual liaisons of white males with slave women presented moral, ethical, and legal conundrums and contradictions for a social order dependent on the exploitation of black social inferiority and the containment of sex within marriage. These conflicts were unresolvable though well understood by all.
The “jezebel” stereotype allowed antebellum society to place blame on black women for
any interracial sexual activity that occurred outside of the confines of white marriage.
The “mammy” stereotype and the “jezebel” stereotype were both used to communicate an
anti-miscegenation message in the United States.
The image of the “mammy,” the “jezebel” and other slavery-era, minstrel show
stereotypes traveled around the world. Black collectables, also known as black
memorabilia, were objects created directly after Reconstruction that depicted slavery-era
and minstrel show stereotypes. Tens of thousands of these objects circulated within the
United States, Europe and Asia from the 1880s though the 1950s. Cookie jars, salt and
pepper shakers, post cards, and even toys for children reflected slavery-era, minstrel
show stereotypes. These objects, offered to the buying public as nonnative, supposedly
desirable collectables, perpetuated the idea that black people were inferiors, “others,”
distinctly different from white people.49 Walker and other African American scholars and
artists have developed collections of these objects for their own historical analysis. These
memorabilia and the racist stereotypes on which they are based have influenced Walker’s
artistic creations.50
48 Ibid, 137. 49 Kenneth W Goings, Mammy and Unice Mose (Indianapolis: Indian University Press, 1994), xiii-xxiv, 48. 50 Liz Armstrong, "Kara Walker " inNo Place (Like Home), ed. Kathleen Mclean (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1997), 102.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27
In Walker’s artwork the past and the present blur together, asserting that these old
stereotypes are the root of contemporary stereotypes about black female sexuality. Her
images also present an unsettling combination of personal narrative and United States
history. Walker’s move from California to Atlanta, Georgia at the age of thirteen had a
traumatic effect on her understanding of how gender and racial identity is perceived.51
Walker explained during an interview at the Museum of Modem Art (MoMA):
In Georgia I became black in more senses than just the kind of multicultural acceptance that I grew up with in California. Blackness became a very loaded subject, a very loaded thing to be — all about forbidden passions and desires, and all about a history that’s still living, very present.. .the shame of the South and the shame of the South’s past; its legacy and contemporary troubles.52
Walker further explained that she was considered to be a “jezebel” while living in an area
where the Ku Klux Klan had meetings on a regular basis.53 According to an interview in
Flash Art, Walker received threatening letters from the Ku Klux Klan when she was
engaged in interracial relationships while living in Atlanta.54 Walker’s existence and
sense of self were altered by her experiences in Atlanta.
The climate of racial intolerance and hatred in Atlanta had a destabilizing effect
on Walker’s psychological development into young womanhood. According to African
American Studies scholar Manning Marable, the development of a stereotype involves
the formation of a label, image or set of characteristics that disregard a group’s unique
51 Corns and Hobbs, 435. 52 Museum o f Modem Art, Conversations with Contemporary Artists: Kara Walker [Webpage] (1999, accessed 28 December 2005); available from http://www.moma.org/onlineprojects/conversations/kw_f.html. 53 Ibid; Corris and Hobbs, 435. 54 Saltz, 86.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28
culture and history - negating the possibility of self-definition.55 Walker has publicly
explained her own battles with internalized oppression while citing the power of
stereotypes. In order to cope with the pain of being castigated as an eroticized “other,”
Walker believes that she began to play into these assumptions about her sexual identity.56
Walker explains:
I figured out I was a milestone in people’s sexual experience - to have made it with a black woman was one of those things to check off on your list of personal sexual accomplishments. That already has a slightly masochistic effect: to have just been the body for somebody’s life story. I guess that’s when I decided to offer up my side-long glances: to be a slave just a little bit....So I used this mythic, fictional, kind of slave character to justify myself, or reinvent myself in some rn other situations.
Walker’s experiences in Atlanta echo Marable’s assertion. More than a century after the
slave trade ended and through the Jim Crow era, black women are still placed within
co derogatory social categories.
Walker both embraced and challenged the pervasive effects of slavery’s history
through her work. The lengthy titles for her artworks are references to published slave
narratives reflecting Walker’s feelings of being sent back in time while living in Atlanta.
She also incorporates her personalized experience of slave-era attitudes by signing her
name using various pseudonyms that she has created for herself. For an installation
displayed at Wooster Gardens, Kara Walker signed her work “Miss K Walker, a Free
Negress of Noteworthy Talent.”59 For the Negress Notes, a series of Walker’s drawings
55 Corris and Hobbs, 428. 56 Museum of Modem Art, (accessed). 57. Saltz, 86. 58 Collins, 69-84; Paula Giddings,When and Where I Enter: The Impact o f Black Women on Race and Sex in America (New York: Bantam Books, 1984), 31. 59 Saltz, 82.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29
displayed at the San Francisco Museum of Modem Art (SFMoMA), Walker signed her
name as “Missus K.E.B Walker.” Walker was bom into a middle-class family. Her alter-
ego names fuse her own identity with those of black middle-class women writers from
the past, who published their work under names such as Mrs. A.E. Johnson and Mrs. N.F
Mossell.60 Through her artwork Walker maintains a complex analysis of her own
internalized oppression. Her personal testimonials are placed within the context of United
States history. Atlanta’s hostile racial climate proved to Walker that time does not move
in a linear direction.
Race is not defined by color within Walker’s artwork. Usually, in Walker’s
silhouette installations all of the characters, regardless of their race, are illustrated using
black paper cut-outs placed on white backgrounds. Often, Walker uses a similar
technique for her animated silhouette films, drawings and paintings. The majority of
Walker’s drawings include figures that are black outlines on white paper, and in Walker’s
paintings, each character has been painted using the same paint color.61 Instead of relying
on skin color as a signifier for racial identity, the spectator is forced to assign racial
meaning to each character through their understanding of racial stereotypes. Signifiers
such as exaggerated protruding lips, thick hair that sticks up on a character’s head and a
character’s posture denote his or her race and gender. Walker depicts race and gender
through the illustration of differences in facial features and body types as defined by
60 Shaw, 51-52. 61 Walker has created a few works of art that illustrate characters with different skin colors. The overwhelming majority of her art does not depict characters with different skin colors. Most scholarly publications that include a critique of Walker’s art do not provide an analysis of her work that includes illustrations of characters with different skin colors. Additional scholarship providing a discussion o f this unique category of Walker’s art would be beneficial for art historians and art administrators.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30
racist eighteenth and nineteenth-century biological theory and minstrel stereotypes.
Ultimately, Walker’s work forces the spectator to explore various fictional elements and
contradictions inherent in the unstable category of race. One of these contradictions is the
fact that we depend on physical signifiers in order to designate an individual’s or group’s
race. This dependence is in direct conflict with highly regarded contemporary racial
theories that define race as a social construction. The end result is that as viewers we are
forced to renegotiate stereotypes to some degree in order to understand Walker’s art.
Walker’s silhouettes have received substantial attention for their visually complex
symbols and laden images. Her paintings and drawings are just as complex, yet they have
received less commentary from art critics and scholars. Though not as formally seductive
as her silhouettes, Walker’s drawing Untitled (Destroying the Terror) (figure 2), created
in 1994, is a semiotically dense work of art.Untitled (Destroying the Terror), owned by
the Walker Art Center, features a nude, fanatical slave mother about to murder her child.
The drawing depicts a naked, androgynous child. The child’s leg is pushing off of the
mother in an effort to escape a deadly fate.
The slave mother illustrated in Walker’s drawing is not depicted in a sympathetic
manner. Her exaggerated protruding lips, which occupy most of the woman’s face, are in
accordance with minstrelsy imagery. The slave woman’s nudity in the drawing implies
her sexual availability. One possible reading of Untitled (Destroying the Terror) is that
the child, produced from a sexual encounter involving a slave woman and a slave owner,
is the “terror.” Walker portrays a crazed, sexually charged woman unfit to raise children.
The image highlights the stereotype of the “jezebel” as an aggressive threat to social
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31
stability. Untitled (Destroying the Terror) illustrates one of the main messages
communicated through the perpetuation of the “jezebel” stereotype; slave trade and post
slavery era anti-miscegenation rhetoric.
.{a -//fVp.
Figure. 2. Kara Walker, Untitled (Destroying the Terror), 1994. Illustration courtesy of Brent Sikkema Gallery, New York City. Reprinted from, [Website] (Walker Art Center, Collections, accessed 18 November 2005); available from http://collections. walkerart .org/ item/obi ect/7655.
The child also represents the horrors of life in bondage. Clearly, the mother would
prefer that the child die rather than live as a slave. Walker’s artistic production has been
influenced by Toni Morrison’s novels. There are many parallels between Morrison’s
novel, Beloved and Walker’s Untitled (Destroying the Terror). Beloved is the story of
Sethe, a woman who has lived through the horrors of slavery and has killed her daughter
62 Edna Moshenson, "The Emancipation Approximation," inKara Walker: Deutshe Bank Collection, ed. Adriane Grigoteit and Friedhelm Hutte (Frankfurt am Main: Deutsche Bank Art, 2003), 55.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 32
in order to spare her daughter a life of extreme suffering. After Sethe has escaped to the
North, and slavery has become illegal, Sethe is haunted by the ghost of her murdered
daughter. Morrison interwove numerous slave narratives within her text. The characters
and the overall plot of Beloved contain historical references to the former lives of slaves.
The character of Sethe is based on the experiences of Margaret Gamer, a slave woman of
African descent who, in 1856, tried to escape a life in bondage by running away from the
plantation with her children. The state authorities captured Gamer before she reached
freedom. Gamer chose to kill one of her daughters with a butcher knife when she realized
she had lost all hope of freedom. According to the Kentucky press Gamer professed that
given a chance she would kill all of her children in order to spare them from a life of
bondage.64 Untitled (Destroying the Terror) therefore plausibly illustrates the anguish
and grief felt by countless slave women in the past. Like the character of Sethe, Walker’s
spectators are subjected to the nightmarish experience of being haunted by slaveries
past.65
Walker’s John Brown (figure 3), a painting created in 1996, highlights the artist’s
tendency to actively question and investigate racial folklore that still lingers in the United
States cultural landscape. John Brown was a radical white abolitionist, convicted of
treason and conspiracy to incite a slave rebellion. He was publicly executed in 1859.
63 Shaw, 46; I have provided a brief plot summary of Toni Morrison’s novel,Beloved ; Toni Morrison, Beloved (New York: Penguin Group, 1987). 64 Gerda Lemer, "The Case o f Margaret Gamer," Blackin Women in White America: A Documentary History, ed. Gerda Lemer (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), 60-63. 65 Shaw, 27.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33
Walker’sJohn Brown portrays a revisionist interpretation of Brown’s legendary last
moments before his public execution.66
>
Figure. 3. Kara Walker. John Brown. 1996. Watercolor and gouache on paper, 65 x 51 in. Illustration courtesy of Brent Sikkema Gallery, New York City. Reprinted from, Ian Berry and others, eds., Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003), 21.
66 Ibid, 169.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34
In 1859, news stories published in periodicals recounted Brown affectionately
kissing a young slave boy held by a slave woman as he was led by law officials towards
his public hanging. Poems and folk songs were written during this era that described this
same scene and lamented John Brown’s publicly expressed fondness for the slave child
and mother, who said their goodbyes during his last day alive. Brown became an folk
hero. Beloved by abolitionists, his legacy was also carried on by African American male
scholars including Fredrick Douglass, George Washington Williams, and W.E.B Du
Bois. Douglass helped establish the John Brown professorship in 1881. Both Williams
and Du Bois wrote scholarly publications that celebrated Brown’s actions.67
Within John Brown Walker incorporates art historical references to both black
white artists. The legendary scene that occurred before Brown’s execution has been
portrayed by male artists including Thomas Satterwhite Noble, Thomas Hovenden, and
Jacob Lawrence.68 In both Noble’s 1867 painting (figure 4) and in Hovenden’s 1884
painting, the slave woman and child are strategically placed below John Brown. John
Brown is depicted as a physically strong, confident patriarch. The humble slave woman
kneels before him and raises her child towards the heroic abolitionist. Behind the
kneeling slave woman, there appears to be a “mammy” who embraces two white
children. Noble’s painting presents a social, racial and gendered hierarchy, where black
women are dependent upon and serve a powerful, white male.
67 Ibid, 69-71. 68 Ibid, 68.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure. 4. Thomas Satterwhite Noble, John Brown’s Blessings, 1867. Oil on canvas. Illustration courtesy of the New York Historical Society, New York City. Reprinted from, Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker (London: Duke University Press, 2004), 81.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36
Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, an art historian and African American studies scholar,
provides a critique of Walker’s John Brown in her text Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art
of Kara Walker. Shaw argues that Walker’s John Brown contrasts sharply with previous
depictions of the abolitionist that Thomas Satterwhite Noble, Thomas Hovenden, and
Jacob Lawrence created. Painted with wispy, graceful brush strokes, Walker’s John
Brown depicts a disgruntled, elderly, physically out of shape white abolitionist. Shaw
states that Brown turns his head away from a young slave boy who is sucking on Brown's
nipple. Closer inspection might lead a viewer to think that he is instead biting Brown’s
hand.69 At the same time, Shaw sees the disinterested slave mother as paying little
attention to her son or to Brown since her eyes gaze past them. Walker’s John Brown
subverts the artworks that previously depicted the iconic abolitionist. Although Walker’s
artwork has been criticized by some feminists, John Brown provides interesting
commentary about past and present patriarchal ideology, race and gender identity, hinting
at a black feminist, artistic framework.
Walker’s John Brown does not communicate that the abolitionist movement was
an insignificant moment in America’s history. Instead, her art critiques patriarchal
assumptions and United States mythology that are imbedded in previous recollections of
Brown. Walker’s depiction of the child and his ambiguous but clearly adversarial
relationship to Brown provides a fascinating illustration of the relationship between black
men and white men in their struggle for power. Shaw explains that Walker’s
69 On page 72 inSeeing the Unspeakable: the Art of Kara Walker, Shaw admits that Walker’sJohn Brown is “hard to read” due to the way in which she painted the illustrations. Contrary to Shaw’s analysis, the young boy in John Brown may not be sucking on Brown’s nipple. Instead, it appears the child may be biting another section of Brown’s body, such as his hand. Walker’s work is ambiguous and there are always multiple and different plausible readings of her illustrations.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 37
subversion lies in the child’s attempt to draw sustenance not from its black mother, but instead from the power of martyred masculine whiteness that Brown’s body represents in American visual culture. The tortured expression on Brown’s face and the horribly stretched skin of his breast implies that the slave child is sucking at the teat of a white patriarchy that is painfully dry. 70
She sees the slave child as aggressively trying to obtain or attack white patriarchal power,
rendering his mother useless since, in this historical scenario, black women lack any
institutional power. Brown’s facial expression denotes his frustration towards a black
woman who does not humble herself before him and a slave child trying to drain him of
societal power.
While Walker critiques white patriarchy within John Brown, she also provides
commentary about iconic black male artists and black masculinity. Shaw notes that
William H. Johnson’s and Jacob Lawrence’s depictions of Brown conveniently left out
the slave woman who was always included in older depictions of Brown created by white
male artists.71 What Shaw does not communicate in her text is that Walker’s John Brown
can also open up a discussion of the limitations for black women that existed within
Black Nationalism and Black Empowerment rhetoric, often communicated through the
artwork created by black male artists, such as Jacob Lawrence, who sought to uplift the
black community through art and present complimentary images of black people to white
society.
Shaw also does not provide a detailed analysis concerning the illustration of the
African American boy in Walker’sJohn Brown. The child’s facial expression denotes
that he is both afraid of Brown and afraid that his mother may lose her grip and let him
70 Ibid, 72-73. 71 Ibid, 98-101.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38
fall out of her arms. His outstretched hand, aimed at his mother conveys the child’s fear
that his mother will abandon him.
The boy’s worried facial expression provides another visual critique of the
conflict-ridden relationship between black women and black men, and black men and
white men, in their struggle for empowerment. The boy becomes a vehicle for Walker’s
critique of patriarchal cycles of violence. The black male child appears to both fear white
male patriarchy, but he also aims to acquire the power that white men have as patriarchs
through his emotional relationship to Brown’s body. Black men have reason to fear white
patriarchy. Within the United States black men have been victims of violent crime
resulting from white supremacy and white male fear of the “other”. However, black
women have been oppressed by black men who internalize a patriarchal model of
masculinity. According to Collins, both white and black histories are connected through
shared instances of sexism and violent abuse of power. Collins explains:
Examining these interdependent group histories often reveals painful contradictions.. ..claims by some African American men that racial oppression is more fundamental then gender oppression sound hollow in a context of shirked responsibility for their violence against African American women....moral positions as survivors of one expression of systemic violence become eroded in the absence of accepting responsibility for other expressions of systemic violence.72
In John Brown, Walker illustrates a cycle of oppression. Positions of power shift and the
boy is placed in a precarious position where he symbolizes both the oppressed and the
oppressor. The slave mother appears to ignore her child because his attachment to a
72 Patricia Hill Collins, "U.S. Black Feminism in Transnational Context " Blackin Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge. 2000), 247.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39
patriarchal construction of masculinity will turn her child into a man who oppresses black
women.
One of the most striking elements of Walker’s art is that no one is able to escape
scrutiny. Her visual assessment of gender identity within the black community and the
white community is frank. John Brown critiques a conservative form of Black
Nationalism, which left out the perspectives of black women and relied on a patriarchal
notion of masculinity. The slave woman depicted in John Brown is an ambivalent figure.
She does not bow down in servitude. However, she does not actively protest her lowly
position. The slave woman in John Brown is not heroic, but in contrast to Lawrence’s
representation, she is also not rendered invisible.
Walker’s silhouette installations also provide commentary about our
understanding of race and gender identity through her incorporation of historical analysis.
Silhouettes were a craft that white women often produced and were considered to be a
form of inexpensive portraiture during the nineteenth century. While contemporary
popular culture has used the silhouette as a symbol that communicates nostalgia for the
past, the problematic history of the silhouette is usually hidden from the modern-day
viewer. Silhouettes often drew 0 1 1 nineteen-century biological race theories. Johan Casper
Lavater used the silhouette as a tool to support his beliefs in the pseudo-science of
physiognomy. He theorized that the physical appearance of a group of people determines
their character and identity. Phrenologists, those who studied the shape and size of human
skull to determine identity, character, and mental ability, relied on the theory that race is
biological. They made frequent use of the silhouette, as did Lavater, to rationalize their
beliefs about the superiority of the white race over people of African decent. Walker’s
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40
use of this nineteenth-century representational practice exposes the racist implications of
silhouette. In Walker’s artwork the silhouette is transformed into a harsh visual reminder
of nineteenth-century bigotry and privilege. 73
Her silhouette installations, created during the 1990s, were a direct reference to
the racial identifications of her audience - Walker addresses both black and white
viewers. Both groups are deliberately made to feel uncomfortable by her artwork. These
two racial groups are placed in a position where each individual comes in contact with his
or her own shadow. The effective use of black silhouettes on a white background
emphasizes the shadowy nature of Walker’s characters. These life-size, black silhouettes
take on the form of ancestral ghosts.74
Walker’s phantasmagoric silhouette installation The End of the Uncle Tom and
the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven (figure 5) was displayed at The Whitney
Biennial in 1997, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modem Art (SFMoMA) in 1998.75
The piece is one of her most well-known silhouette installations. Artist Betye Saar
included a photographic reproduction of The End of the Uncle Tom and the Grand
Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven in a letter campaign to protest the MacArthur
7 f\ Foundations’ financial support of Walker. This installation also contains on-going
themes that are frequently depicted within the full body of Walker’s artwork.
The End of the Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven
contains four sets of images linked to create a unified whole. The characters depicted in
The End of the Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven maintain
73 Carpio 128-130; Corris and Hobbs, 438-439; Shaw 20-22. 74 Carpio, 122-123; Shaw, 39-40, 43. 75 Shaw, 38. 76 Joo, 112-114.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41
a haunting life-size stature when displayed in a museum. The spectator is transferred to a
violent time period where the body is exploited for profit and abuse of power is a socially
accepted daily occurrence. These images do not need to be read in chronological order.
Walker communicates her gothic tale regardless of the order in which the spectator
notices the images. For clarity here, a description from left to right is provided.
The story begins with a human pyramid composed of three “mammies.” Two of
them eagerly suckle at each other’s breasts. A young “pickaninnie” is located on the knee
of the “mammy” that is positioned on the bottom of the slave pyramid. The “pickaninnie”
stretches in vain hoping to receive its mother’s milk. The second set of images contains
three “pickaninnies” and a young “mistress” holding an ax backward towards herself.
The first “pickaninnie” in this set holds a tambourine and does a “sambo” dance to his
music while excreting on the ground. His excrement forms a path towards another
“pickaninnie” staring at his “mistress.” Behind the young “mistress,” a young “negress”
waits for the opportunity to stab her “mistress” with a crude, homemade weapon.
The third set illustrates an unsettling scene. This scenario depicts an old slave
“master” with one leg. He maintains his balance by stabbing his sword into a baby
“pickaninnie” with no regret. The “master’s” attention is not directed toward the almost
dead child who is allowing him to stay balanced. Instead he is focused on the act of
sodomy he commits with a young “jezebel.” She turns to watch him with delight. The
“jezebel’s” facial expression communicates that she is actually intrigued by the grotesque
abuse of power. Her gleeful stare painfully communicates the “jezebel” stereotype that is
based upon the colonial identification of black women as oversexed animals.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. , 1995. Cut Paper and and Paper Cut , 1995. (London: Duke University Press, 2004), 2-3. 2004), Press, University Duke (London:
Seeing the Unspeakable: Art The oKara f Walker The EndThe o the f Uncle Tom and the GrandAllegorical Tableau oEva Heavenin f Figure. 5. Kara Walker, Walker, Kara 5. Figure. adhesive on wall, 15 x 35 ft. (dimensions variable). Illustration Courtesy of Brent Sikkema Gallery, New York City. Reprinted from from Reprinted City. York New Gallery, Sikkema Brent of Courtesy Illustration variable). (dimensions ft. x 35 wall, 15 on adhesive Shaw, Bois Du Gwendolyn
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43
The fourth and final scene depicts a pleading Uncle Tom with a baby
“pickaninnie” attached to his anus by an umbilical cord. His trousers, which have
partially fallen down, expose his anus. A strict “mistress” scolds him with an accusatory
finger. The “mistress” is split in half and has her foot on a female “pickaninnie” head.
Smaller scale icons that represent America’s southern region during the time of
slavery are above these four scenes and thus, visually “in the background.” The
plantation looms above the first two groupings. A small slave lodge, where one slave
watches another run to the outhouse, is located far “behind” the next two scenes. The
placement of the plantation and the slave lodge gives Walker’s images a three-
dimensional effect. It looks as if we could walk to the plantation or the slave lodge
ourselves. Silhouettes of grass and trees are incorporated into the installation in order to
emphasize the southern, rural environment.
Walker collapses the self/other dichotomy within her silhouette installations.
Hegemonic, socially proscribed race and gender constructs within the United States are
defined by binaries. As Collins explains:
binary thinking shapes understandings of human difference. In such thinking, difference is defined in oppositional terms. One part is not simply different from its counterpart; it is inherently opposed to its “other.” Whites, blacks, males and females, thought and feeling are not complementary counterparts - they are fundamentally different entities related only through their definition as opposites.77
The theory that black people embodied every characteristic that white citizens did not
was perpetuated during colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade. This widely held
assumption defined race whenever Africans were present. Walker exposes this theory as
77 Collins, 70
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 44
a work of pure fiction. Both racial groups engage in savage acts that degrade them to an
animalistic state of being. According to The End of the Uncle Tom and the Grand
Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven, the transatlantic slave trade degraded both racial
groups into a sub-human state.
The title of the piece is a direct reference to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s
Cabin. The End of the Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven is
Walker’s interpretation of Stowe’s novel, an interpretation which is devoid of the pious
sentimentality typical of Stowe’s narrative. In Walker’s interpretation the young
“mistress” with the ax is Evangeline St.Clair, a character in Stowe’s novel. Walker refers
to her in the title of her piece as “Eva”. Evangeline St.Clair is a young, white girl known
for her hair and her sweetness. Her hair becomes an idealized emblem that the slaves in
the novel collect. In Stowe’s novel, gentle Uncle Tom loves mistress Evangeline and
carries around a lock of her hair after she has passed on.78 The “mammy” pyramid
depicted in The End of the Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in
Heaven illustrates Walker’s distinctive blend of literary textual references, mythology,
reality, and rebellion through iconic racial symbols. The image provides a direct
reference to Stowe’s text, as there is a nursemaid with the name “Mammy” in Uncle
Tom’s Cabin.
In the “mammy” pyramid the breast becomes a symbol communicating the
exploitation and abuse of the black female body during slavery. The monetary value
placed on the female slave body was dependent on the physical labor black women were
78 Joo, 102-105.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45
forced to endure and was also dependent on their reproductive capacities. Slave women
were frequently called upon to fulfill the duties of a wet nurse by providing milk to the
children of their “mistresses.” Slave children were often denied the milk that was
biologically produced for them.79 The little “pickaninnie” baby stretching in vain for its
mother’s milk represents the numerous slave children that were denied maternal care.
Figure. 6. Kara Walker, The End of the Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven, 1995. Cut paper and adhesive on wall, 15 x 35 ft. (detail).
The milk exchanged in the “mammy” pyramid can be compared to the other
bodily fluids that Walker’s characters release. The release of bodily fluids represents the
urgent need for Walker’s characters to get their own voice out. During an interview,
Walker explained that her excretion visuals allude to “...finding one’s voice in the wrong
79 Shaw., 44-47.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46
end; searching for ones voice and having it come out the wrong way.”80 Walker’s images
visualize Marable’s assertion that stereotypes negate the possibility of self-actualization.
Breast milk and feces have oppositional meanings in Walker‘s work. While the
illustration of feces denotes the loss of an individuals’ subjectivity due to the
internalization of a stereotype, breast milk represents a nutritive, self-sustaining
O | substance. If the release of bodily fluids in Walker’s art signifies the release of self
expression, the young baby on the bottom of the “mammy” pyramid strains in vain to
receive a form of black identity that is not relegated by a slavery stereotype.
The “mammy” pyramid both confirms and transcends the traditional “mammy”
stereotype. Walker’s “mammies” do replicate aspects of the minstrel “mammy”
caricature. “Mammies” were expected to neglect their own slave children, which is
exactly what the three women in Walker’s piece are doing. Even though there is a hungry
child below them, Walker’s “mammies” are consumed by their own need to receive milk
from each other. However, the “mammies” in Walker’s installation are also erotic. Her
subversive illustration of three black women with their dresses pulled down and their
attention keenly focused on each other’s bodies alters the traditional stereotype of the
“mammy.” During the slavery era and within the confines of minstrelsy, “mammies”
were defined as physically unappealing women, devoid of any sensuality. A “mammy’s”
sole purpose for existence was to serve the needs of her mistress’s child.82 In The End of
the Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven , the three
“mammy’s” exist solely to fulfill the pleasures and needs of each other, not the needs of
80 Kara Walker quoted in Saltz, 84. 81 Corris and Hobbs, 426. 82 Collins, 72-74.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47
the white establishment that has claimed ownership of their bodies. Although Walker’s
“mammies” ignore the hungry child below them, these “mammies” are also engaged in
an act of defiance against the slavery establishment by their insistence to serve each
other. Their own bodies are carnally reclaimed for themselves, even against the wishes of
the hungry child that yearns for their sustenance.83
Figure. 7. Kara Walker, The End of the Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven, 1995. Cut paper and adhesive on wall, 15 x 35 ft. (detail).
A comparison of the “mammy” pyramid to the image of the young “jezebel” that
is sexually intertwined with her slave owner highlights the way in which the “mammy”
and the “jezebel” stereotype are connected. Both images contain illustrations of suffering,
neglected black children. Both illustrations also visualize old myths about black female
sexuality.
83 Shaw, 47.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48
The meaning of a sign is not stagnant. A visual sign from the nineteenth century
can communicate a different message during the twenty-first century. Signs are
dependent on the meaning assigned to them by the spectator as embedded in his or her OA society. During slavery and the minstrel show period these images communicated a
very specific meaning. These stereotypes had the intentional purpose of communicating
the supposed inferiority of black people. Minstrel shows blatantly degraded black people
through painful humor while raising the white population to the realm of the “civilized.”
However, Walker’s subversive depictions of slavery and minstrel show stereotypes do
more then simply mimic derogatory symbols from the past. Her works of art transcend
the original meaning and purpose of minstrel show imagery. Walker’s art forces the
viewer to contemplate the density of race and gender relations, race and gender-based
experience, and the contradictions inherent in these social categories during the past and
the present.
The display of Walker’s art in museums has generated heated debate within the
art sector. Untitled (Destroying the Terror), John Brown and The End of the Uncle Tom
and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven display themes Walker continues to
repeat as she creates artwork revolving around the helixes of historical and contemporary
myth and reality. Confusingly ambiguous, but visually stunning, Walker’s art employs
the stereotype as a vehicle that can be used to address painfully complex issues of
identity and experience. Walker, however, is an exceptionally controversial figure. The
contention that revolves around Walker is the result of where Walker’s artwork is
84 Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson, "Semiotics and Art History,"Art Bulletin 73, no. 2 (1991): 175,179.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49
displayed, her reliance on derogatory iconography, and her blunt verbal statements
regarding race and gender identity.
In 1999 Walker’s installation,A Means to an End... A Shadow Drama in Five
Acts, was pulled at the last minute from the Detroit Institute of the Arts. The museum
DC t t t director was concerned about audience reception. Other scholars, critics and artists have
questioned the museum attendees’ reception of Walker’s art. Depending on the individual
and their understanding of the complexities of race and gender, they may not understand
that Walker encourages the spectator to critically examine their understanding of race and
gender-based identity shaped by the past and the present simultaneously. The display of
Walker’s art is a complex act for museum professionals because her art contains such
sensitive subject matter pertaining to identity illustrated through nebulous imagery.
American museum professionals have struggled to figure out the best way to include art
that explores the experiences of marginalized groups.
85 Carpio, 135.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 3
THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM’S PRESENTATION OF KARA
WALKER’S ART
What often gets forgotten is that the museum may be at its safest when it exhibits “dangerous” art precisely because it insists on participating in rather than avoiding current debates occurring outside the museum. An exhibition can be a forum in which difficult issues are addressed without the expectation that all questions can be resolved or that closure is the desired result.
Reesa Greenberg, "Playing It Safe? The Display of Transgressive Art in the Museum," in Mirroring Evil. Nazi Imagery/Moral Ambiguity/ Contemporary Art
In 2003 the Studio Museum in Harlem (SMH) exhibited Kara Walker: Excavated
from the Heart of a Black Negress, a solo exhibition that displayed Kara Walker’s art.
SMH was the first black museum to exhibit Kara Walker’s art.86 To fully understand how
Walker’s art was presented by SMH, we must understand the museum itself, the way in
which the staff at SMH communicated the meanings embedded in Walker’s art, and the
audience’s reception. The following chapter will begin with a brief description of SMH’s
exhibition history. This chapter will also include an analysis of the educational tools that
accompanied the presentation of Walker’s art. Finally, the critical reception of the
exhibition will be analyzed to determine the reception of Walker’s artwork when it was
presented at SMH.
86 Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw,Seeing the Unspeakable : The Art o f Kara Walker (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 123. 50
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51
SMH has positioned itself as an alternative to the well-established, mainstream art
museums in New York City. When the museum first opened its doors to the public in
1968, it offered a space where black artists could exhibit their work when most
mainstream art museums excluded their art. There are many museums in the United
States devoted to the display and collection of black history and culture; however, up
until the year 2000, SMH was the only accredited museum in the United States that
specialized in the display of art created by black people. 87 The staff who work for SMH
have made a concerted effort to recruit black professionals for leadership positions when
most mainstream art museums lacked any people of color within their leadership ranks.
Importantly, SMH has taken significant chances, exhibiting controversial artists that other
black museums have shied away from. To wit, the museum’s mission is:
The Studio Museum in Harlem is the nexus for black artists locally, nationally, and internationally and for work that has been inspired and influenced by black culture. It is a site for the dynamic exchange of ideas about art and society. 8
The museum contains a permanent collection of over 1,600 paintings, sculptures,
watercolors, drawings, pastels, prints, photographs, mixed media works, and installations
OQ created by people of African descent. SHM has also provided crucial institutional
support for black artists through their artists-in-residence program. As of 2002, the
museum’s artists-in-residence program has supported the careers of over ninety black
artists.90 Black artists have publicly expressed their gratitude for the museum’s support.
87 Holland Cotter, "Shaking up a Harlem Museum,"New York Times, 28 Feb 2000, E l. 88 The Studio Museum in Harlem,The Studio Museum in Harlem Press Room [Webpage] (2003, accessed 19 April 2006); available from http://www.studiomuseum.org/mission.html 89 Ibid. 90 Soraya Murray, "Studio Museum in Harlem,"International Review of African American Art 18, no. 4 (2002): 34.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52
According to artist Faith Ringgold, an exhibition at SMH is the “ultimate right of passage
for black artists in America and probably the world.”91
SMH was established during a period of political and cultural transition within the
Untied States. Black museums created during this time period were the product of the
Civil Rights Movement and the Black Empowerment Movement. The black museum
boom began during the 1950s. Between 1950 and 1980 over ninety museums that focused
on the presentation of black culture and history opened their doors to the public in the
United States and in Canada. Often, museums of this nature were established by
community activists, artists and teachers that had played an active role in the Civil Rights
Q9 Movement and/or the Black Empowerment Movement.
In her article, “Mythos, Memory and History”, historian Faith Davis Ruffins
explains that black museums provided a space for the debate of alternative discourses.
Beginning in the late 1960s and lasting into the 1970s, a significant number of black
activist groups began to experience ideological fragmentation. Within Civil Rights and
Black Empowerment organizations internal debates occurred concerning issues such as
gender inequality and what acts constituted effective political action. Ruffins asserts that
differing political and social philosophies within the black community created stimulating
intellectual environments where opposing ideologies from different members of the black
community were shared within museums and cultural centers. Ruffins states:
Criticism was to be encouraged, not feared. As former political activists moved into the cultural centers and museums in the 1970s and 1980s, they brought these
91 Sheila Rule, "Museum as Cultural Anchor: The Studio Museum at 25,"New York Times, 23 Nov 1993, C13. 92 Fath Davis Ruffins, "Mythos, Memory, and History: African American Preservation Efforts, 1820-1990," in Museums and Communities : The Politics of Public Culture, ed. Ivan Karp, Christine Mullen Kreamer, and Steven D Lavine (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 557-563.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53
values of criticism to their new world. Together with all of their inherent differences, the years of the modem civil rights movement (1950-1965) and the years of the Black Power movement (1965-1975) might be called the Black Consciousness Era. The Black museum was bom out of this enormously complex welter of cultural expression, debate, and critique.93
These varied forms of thought were expressed in institutions that were considered
to be tools for communal uplift, empowerment and social change. According to Ruffins,
black museums were concerned about the needs of their community well before
mainstream museums began to explore the ways in which the voice of the local
community could be heard.94
In 1968 SMH became the first public art institution in Harlem. The museum
opened with a small, full-time staff of four people who operated the organization from
one floor in a building that was shared with a clothing sweatshop. The museum also
opened without a permanent art collection.95 The staff at SMH began collecting art for the
institution’s permanent collection in 1975.96 The origins of most mainstream art museums
differ greatly from the development of black museums. Typically, mainstream art
museums are established with a permanent art collection and have available economic
resources. Most black museums began as grassroots organizations and lacked a
permanent collection, ownership of a building, and the funding necessary for economic
93 Ibid, 557. 94 Ibid, 570. 95 Grace Glueck, "Harlem Initiates First Art Museum,"New York Times, 25 Sep 1968, 40. Grace Glueck, "A Very Own Thing in Harlem,"New York Times, 15 Sep 1968, D34. 96 In 2005 the Studio Museum featured an exhibition entitledCollection in Context: Selections from the Permanent Collection. The Studio Museum in Harlem, Past Exhibitions [Webpage] (2006, accessed 4 June 2006); available from http://www.studiomuseum.org/exhibitions_past.html.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54
Q7 stability. In this respect, the staff who worked for SMH encountered the same obstacles
that other black museum professionals faced during the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Unlike a lot of black museums, most of SMH’s founders were not artists and
activists. The museum was founded by a racially mixed group of individuals from the
for-profit business sector, the political arena and the visual arts field. The museum’s
founders included Frank Donnelly, a social worker, and Carter Burden, a lawyer. The
museum’s first vice president was Eleanor Holmes Norton, a lawyer and political activist.
Members of SMH’s board included Thomas Hoving, who during this time was the
director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Bates Lowery, a former director of the
Museum of Modem Art (MoMA).98
SMH’s institutional identity has fluctuated as staff members have exited and new
members have joined the institution. One of the museum’s main goals has been to
showcase contemporary art created by people of African descent that well-established art
institutions in New York have chosen to not to exhibit or collect. This goal has remained
the same; however, in the past the museum’s board and staff have publicly disagreed over
the types of art that should be presented by SMH and over the primary audience that
should be targeted through the museum’s exhibitions. During the SMH’s first years of
operation, some of the museum’s tmstees were concerned about creating an institution
that was akin to MoMA. Some of SMH’s trustees believed that Harlem did not need an
African American MoMA. Instead, they argued, Harlem needed an art institution that
provided a venue for local African American artists to showcase their work. 99 At present,
97 Ruffins, 567. 98 Grace Glueck, "Less Downtown Uptown." New York Times. 20 Jul 1969, D20. "Ibid.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55
SMH has managed to maintain a balance, supporting both local African American artists
and artists of African decent from abroad.
Thelma Golden is currently the chief curator at SMH. Beginning in the 1990s
Thelma Golden’s exhibitions have explored the interconnectedness of identity politics
and art among a generation of postmodern artists of color. Though not always well-
received by art critics, Golden’s exhibitions have instigated debate within the art sector
about the relationship between art, identity, and racial inclusion within museums. For
example, Golden’s Black Romantic exhibition, showcased at SMH in 2002, provided a
curatorial analysis concerning why certain forms of popular art are not exhibited within
museums. Most of the artists included in the exhibition were untrained artists.100 The
inclusion of Black Romantic within a museum exploded the high art/low art and trained
artist/outsider artist dichotomies.101 Golden’s presentation of Walker’s art was part of an
on-going conversation that SMH initiated with art administrators. Yasmil Raymond, a
curator at the Walker Art Center, admits that Golden and SMH have instigated significant
changes within the visual arts sector by creating an increase in the number of black artists
who receive exhibitions for their artwork. Raymond also asserts that Golden has fortified
Walker’s career by exposing her art to the public. 109
It makes sense that Golden would be attracted Walker’s art considering the
subject matter of her previous exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and
at SMH. From 1991 through 1998 Golden worked for the Whitney where she developed
a reputation as a curator who sought to provide exhibition opportunities for young black
100 Roumani and University, (accessed). 101 Andrew Ross, "Golden Moment," ArtForum 40, no. 8 (2002): 27-28. 102 LaViscount, "Phone Interview with Yasmil Raymond."
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56
artists.103 Some of Golden’s exhibitions have instigated distress within certain factions of
the black artistic community. The Black Male exhibition, curated by Golden, focused on
the depiction of black men in visual culture. The exhibition traveled to other mainstream
contemporary art museums. The audience reception that resulted from The Black Male
can be compared to controversy that surrounds the display of Walker’s art. Similar to
Walker’s art, The Black Male exhibit contained visually graphic explorations of
sexuality, violence, racial and gender stereotypes. As artist and scholar Coco Fusco
explains:
...when The Black Male, exhibition was mounted in Los Angeles in 1994, one of the sorest points of contention about the show was over what was perceived as a preponderance of images of nude black men. This, according to several local black artists and activists, necessarily objectified and eroticized black masculinity, thus demeaning black men in general.104
This adverse response to The Black Male can be compared to complaints Walker has
received from some black artists who insist that Walker’s sexually charged images of
black women reinstate harmful, colonialist beliefs about black female sexual objectivity.
Despite the backlash against The Black Male, Golden did not shy away from
controversial art created by black artists.105
SMH decreased the likelihood that a spectator of Walker’s art would mistakenly
assume that Walker is simply reproducing stereotypes without critiquing them. The
museum made Walker’s art appear less ambiguous. SMH’s communication tools
103 Ian Parker, "Golden Touch," The New Yorker 77, no. 43 (2002): 44. 104 Coco Fusco, "The Bodies That Were Not Ours," in The Bodies That Were Not Ours and Other Writings (New York: Routledge, 2001), 5. 105 In 2002, a year before the Kara Walker exhibition opened at SMH, Golden interviewed Walker and published the discussion. Thelma Golden, "A Dialogue with Kara Walker," inKara Walker: Pictures from Another Time, ed. Annette Dixon (Michigan: University of Michigan Museum of Art, 2002), 43-49.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57
provided a discussion of Walker’s racial and gendered subjectivity. The museum also
addressed the process that the exhibition attendee should undergo when viewing her art -
assessing their own ways of seeing the “other” and their own internalization of
stereotypes. Within the museum Walker was not presented as an authority figure on the
subject of black artistic production or black identity. Instead, Walker’s art was
contextualized within a black, postmodern framework. SMH clearly linked Walker’s art
to other black, postmodern artists who have used their art to explore similar subject
matter concerning racial and gender identity. The museum’s coherent presentation of
Walker’s art may be due to the fact that the staff at SMH is accustomed to presenting art
created by black artists that is infused with identity politics. The staff at SMH has
presented a diversity of art created by black artists, and they are well versed in the
multitude of forms and themes that black artists have used both historically and presently.
Walker’s 2003 solo exhibition at SMH contained a segment of the traveling
exhibition Narratives of a Negress, originally organized by The Tang Teaching Museum
and the Williams College Museum of Art. SMH presented a segment of a Walker
installation entitled Kara Walker: Excavated from the Heart o f a Black Negress. The
installation excerpt was specifically designed for SMH’s main, temporary gallery space.
The exhibition also featured American Primitives, which included a series of 3 x 5-inch
index cards containing statements written by Walker that accompanied twenty-one paint
and collage artworks on boards of variable dimensions. The exhibition was accompanied
by two educational tools; Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress, an in-depth, 208-page
catalogue, which was used for every venue on the exhibition tour, and exhibition wall
text written by art historian Darby English.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58
Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress spans Walker’s career and provides a
discussion about her process, the thematic content of her art, and the controversy that
exists over the display of her art. The catalogue also contains numerous reproductions of
her drawings, paintings, silhouette installations, and index card art. The in-depth
catalogue clearly matched English’s exhibition wall text displayed in Walker’s solo
exhibit at SMH. Some of the essays in the catalogue compare Walker’s artwork to other
black artists who have approached similar subject matter. Walker has been influenced by
Adrian Piper’s artwork.106 “The Art of Racial Profiling,” an essay written by Mark
Reinhart, connects both Walker’s writings and the performative aspects of her art to
Adrian Piper’s work. Michelle Wallace contextualizes Walker’s art by linking her art to
other postmodern artists including Robert Colescott, Michael Ray Charles, Kerry James
Marshall and playwright Suzan-Lori Parks.107 Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress
provides a clear context for the display of Walker’s art by connecting her art to other
postmodern black artists while carefully explaining the intricacies of the controversy that
has ensued over the display of Walker’s art.
Walker’s typed statements on index cards shown alongside her drawings can be
compared to personal journal entries. 108 Included on the cards are short comments
describing events and individuals that have influenced the production of Walker’s
artwork. The index cards also contain observations and revelations about her own
identity. The index cards parallel Walker’s silhouette installations in form and content.
106 Mark Reinhardt, "The Art of Racial Profiling " inKara Walker: Narratives o f a Negress, ed. Ian Berry et al. (Massachusetts: MIT Press 2003), 122. 107 Michelle Wallace, "The Enigma of the Negress Kara Walker,"Kara in Walker: Narratives o f a Negress, ed. Ian Berry et al. (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003), 177. 108 Ian Berry, "Preface to Artists Writings," inKara Walker: Narratives o f a Negress ed. Ian Berry et al. (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003), 6.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59
These minimalist artworks juxtapose black and white colors. The exhibition catalogue
provides a brief description of the artistic process Walker underwent in order to create her
index card artwork. After typing her prose Walker re-read the cards and taped the cards
together organizing them in groups. She edited some of the cards with black tape and / or
pencil. The index cards provide insight about the content displayed in Walker’s art.
The display of Walker’s index cards complemented the other educational tools
that SMH provided for the exhibition attendees, which made Walker’s personal narratives
within her art explicit. The content provided on the index cards contained both quotes
from other people and Walker’s own prose. One of the note cards contained a quote from
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, an autobiographical slave narrative written by
Harriet Jacobs. Jacob’s statements communicate her regret at being exposed to abuse of
power and unethical behavior at young age. Walker’s statements merge her thoughts
about interracial relationships and her own identity, with an analysis of contemporary and
historical stereotypical assumptions about the black community, white society, and
gender identity. Following the pattern of her other art forms, historical references,
criticism of both blacks and whites, men and women, contemporary and historical
mythology are woven together to form an intricate discussion about Walker’s own
experiences.109 Walker’s index cards make her silhouette installation, paint and collage
artworks seem a little less ambiguous. They provide the viewer with an explanation of the
images she creates, and explain the way in which Walker inserts her own persona and life
experiences into her artwork. The index card art helps the viewer decipher the content
109 Kara Walker: Narratives o f a Negress, the catalogue that accompanied the Studio Museum’s exhibition of Walker’s art, features reproductions o f some of Walker’s index card art.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60
shown through Walker’s other art forms by making her subjectivity blatant. Mark
Reinhardt, a political science and American studies professor explains that “Words allow
her [Walker] to be more explicit in connecting the matter of race and desire to problems
of consumption, commodification, and (self-) objectification.”110
Walker has been influenced by both black and non-black artists. She is also part
of a community of post-modern black artists that incorporate stereotypical iconography
within their art. The wall text displayed for Walker’s exhibit, written by art historian
Darby English, acknowledged the fact that Walker has been influenced by the work of
Andy Warhol.111 English’s wall text also situated Walker’s art within a black art
historical continuum. English’s statements provide the exhibition attendee with a brief list
of other black artists that have explored some of the same topics that Walker includes in
her art. The other artists English referred to are Robert Colescott, Adrian Piper, Carrie
Mae Weems, and Fred Wilson. Interestingly, SMH has displayed the artwork that some
of these artists have created. 112
By reading English’s concise wall text it is made clear that Walker’s use of
stereotypical iconography does not confirm racist and sexist mythology. According the
explanation provided on the exhibition wall text:
Because their identities may already populate our minds, encounters with Walker’s images can reveal the subtlety and strength with which the language of racism and sexism maintain their grip on our looking and thinking practices. The seductiveness of Walker’s art lures us into an exploration of real social problems
110 Reinhardt, 125. 111 During an interview published inArtforum, Walker explained to art critic Bob Nickas that Warhol’s critique o f American capitalism and has had an impact on her artistic creations. Bob Nickas and Kara Walker, "Death and Dying,"ArtForum 43, no. 2 (2004): 154. 112 i.e.: In 2004 the Studio Museum presented a solo exhibition for Fred Wilson entitled Fred Wilson: Objects and Installations: 1979-2000. [Website] (The Studio Museum in Harlem, 2006, accessed 4 June 2006); available from http://www.studiomuseum.org/exhibitions_past.html.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61
- among them, the supposed equivalence of appearance and identity- at which we could all stand to look harder.1 3
English’s statements clearly explain to the viewer that Walker expects the museum
attendee to analyze their own presumptions about race and gender identity.
SMH approached the controversy that surrounds the display of Walker’s art in a
gentle manner by choosing not to castigate Walker’s critics while at the same time
supporting the display of Walker’s artwork. English’s wall text approaches the
controversy by simply explaining “Some critics charged Walker with impropriety, while
others praised her skills and inventiveness. But all agreed that her art pushed hot buttons
and did so beautifully.”114 The museum has displayed the art work of Walker’s most
vehement critics, including Howardena Pindell and Betty Saar.115 SMH continues to
display the artistic diversity has been present among generations of black artists. Within
the museum modes of artistic expression, such as Walker’s postmodern art or
abstractionist art created by Pindell, are not ranked for artistic quality or thematic
validity. Instead, each form of artistic expression created by black artists is displayed for
their unique and differing contributions.
It seems that SMH’s presentation of Walker’s art and the educational tools that
the museum provided for the exhibition attendee had the desired effect. The New York
Amsterdam News provided a glowing review of the Walker exhibition at SMH. Krishan
113 The Studio Museum’s exhibition wall text is available on their website. The Studio Museum in Harlem, Exhibition Wall Text [Website] (2003, accessed 8 April 2006); available from http://www.studiomuseum.org/pr/kwalker_wall.html. 114 Ibid. 115 From April 5 through July 2 2006 the Studio Museum presented Howardena Pindell’s artwork in a group show entitled Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction, 1964-1980. In 1985 Betty Saar’s work was displayed in a group show entitledTradition and Conflict. Harlem,Past Exhibitions (accessed).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62
Trotman, the author of the review, clearly understood that through Walker’s interrogation
United State’s history Walker expected the exhibition attendee to examine their own
internalization of racial and gender stereotypes. In the review of the exhibition, Trotman
conveyed that Walker’s self-scrutiny illustrated in her art, communicates the problematic
legacy of slavery-era and post slavery-era stereotypes.116 Trotman’s analysis of the
exhibition suggests that SMH’s presentation successfully imparted the difficult messages
embedded in Walker’s nebulous artwork to the viewer.
Even a negative review of Kara Walker: Excavated from the Heart of a Black
Negress conveys the meticulousness of SMH’s presentation. Artnet, an on-line art
magazine that provides reviews of exhibitions, included a negative review written by
Donald Kuspit, a professor of art history and philosophy. Kuspit’s negative review
contained complaints about the content illustrated in Walker’s art. His review did not
include complaints about SMH’s presentation of Walker’s art. Rather, Kuspit’s review
asserted that while Walker’s art is formally impressive, her analysis of racial and gender
stereotypes are outdated. Kuspit made his conservative view point clear by including
statements in his review such as:
The place of blacks in American society has changed for the better - Colin Powell, Condolezza [sic] Rice and the heads of Coca Cola and AOL suggest as much (they seem more than established tokens) .. .Walker’s work is certainly high drama, weirdly tragicomic, with a deft narrative twist, but it has less to do with social reality than black rage, resentment and bitterness. The mural suggests a futile attempt - or is it a deliberate refusal? to - come to terms with past history, suggesting that there is a regressive dimension to the sense of being a victim.117
116 Krishan Trotman, "Kara Walker Electrifies the Studio Museum in Harlem,"New York Amsterdam News 94, no. 30 (2003): 17. 117 Artnet and Donald Kuspit,Kara Walker's Cakewalk [Website] (2004 2003, accessed 5/19/2006); available from http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/kuspit/kuspitl 1-4-03.asp.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63
Kuspit’s perception of contemporary racial and gender relations differs greatly
from Walker’s. Kuspit understands that Walker uses her art to explore the way in which
stereotypes have adversely effected her conception of black, female subjectivity. He is
well aware of Walker’s intent that the viewer should undergo a process of self
examination and that she is part of a community of postmodern black artists that discuss
similar themes through the creation of their art. Kuspit simply believes that the
stereotypes Walker portrays are no longer a hindrance for African American’s and that
art, which incorporates identity politics, obsessively perpetuates a victim •mentality. ♦ 118
SMH can not be expected to convince every individual who believes racism and sexism
are no longer a problem to accept Walker’s ideologies about identity; however, SMH did
fulfill their mission by conveying the themes present in Walker’s laden images.
In her essay, “The Display of the Transgressive: Art in the Museum,” Reesa
Greenberg, an art historian and a museum consultant, discusses controversial
contemporary art exhibitions. Within the article Greenberg explains that “.. .safety zones
within the contemporary art world depend on context. What is safe in one sphere is not
necessarily safe in another.”119 Greenberg’s assertion definitely applies to the
presentation of Kara Walker’s art. The staff at SMH has spent years honing their skills
for the presentation of art created by a diversity of black artists. Due to the thematic
complexity of Walker’s art it makes logical sense that her art should be shown at an
institution that has a strong history of showcasing different forms of black art, which
have communicated a variety of racial and gender ideologies. While SMH is safe
118 Ibid. 119 Reesa Greenberg, "Playing It Safe? The Display of Transgressive Art in the Museum,"Min-oring in Evil. Nazi Imagery/Moral Ambiguity/ Contemporaiy Art (New York The Jewish Museum and Rutgers University Press, 2002), 88.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64
institution for the display of Walker’s art, mainstream art museums are not safe
institutions for the display of Walker’s art due to their legacy of excluding art created by
black artists. Museums that do not have an extensive history of presenting and collecting
art created by black artists encounter significantly different obstacles when compared to
museums such as SMH.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 4
THE WALKER ART CENTER’S PRESENTATION
OF KARA WALKER’S ART
The elevation of occasional stars from the periphery gave the illusion of a larger mainstream embrace, but this was deceptive. The art world, market-driven and self- protectively conservative, operates on a token system and always has. It chooses a black, Latino, or Asian artist and assiduously promotes each one. Recycled in A-list shows and handed endless prizes, these artists come to represent all the other “others” not present.
Holland Cotter, "Beyond Multiculturalism, Freedom?" New York Times, 29 July 2001
In 2005 the Walker Art Center (WAC) displayed Quartet , a group exhibition that
featured the work of four artists; Kara Walker, Matthew Barney, Robert Gober, and
Sherrie Levine. In Quartet, Walker was not placed within a black art historical
continuum. Instead, WAC placed Walker’s art within a group exhibition where Walker
was the only black artist. Interestingly, for a group exhibition, in which Walker was the
only black artist, little was made of her subjectivity as a black female. This chapter will
analyze WAC’s presentation of Walker’s art through an examination of WAC’s
exhibition history, the marketing and educational tools WAC provided for the museum
attendee, the language used by WAC’s curators to describe Walker’s art, information
provided from an interview of a WAC curator, and an analysis of the critical reviews of
Quartet.
65
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66
An analysis of these elements provides opportunities to gain insight about the way in
which WAC presented Walker’s art to the public, how the curatorial staff at WAC
interprets Walker’s art, and the possible messages that Quartet could have conveyed to
the exhibition attendee.
A museum attendee with little knowledge of postmodern art and the history of
black expression could have mistakenly assumed that Walker was the first and the only
black artist who has visually interrogated racial and gender stereotypes through the use of
irony and minstrelsy. The institution’s lack of reference to other postmodern black artists
in their communication tools and within the exhibition space created an environment
where the ambiguous images displayed in Walker’s artwork were hard to decipher.
WAC’s dismissal of previous generations of black artists coincided with the institution’s
focus on the controversy that has surrounded the display of Walker’s art.
WAC, established in Minneapolis in 1927, is one of the most renowned
i y r \ multidisciplinary arts institutions in the United States. WAC owns an expansive
collection of more than 9,600 objects. The art institution recently expanded their space to
121 include eleven exhibition galleries and a state of the art theater. Their mission
statement is:
The Walker Art Center, a catalyst for the creative expression of artists and the active engagement of audiences, examines the questions that shape and inspire us as individuals, cultures, and communities.122
120 Walker Art Center,About the Walker Art Center [Website] (2006, accessed 10 June 2006); available from http://info.walkerart.org/about/history.wac 121 Walker Art Center, Walker Art Center Collection Exhibitions [Website] (2005, accessed 5 June 2005); available from http://calendar.walkerart.org/canopy.wac?id=1520. 122 Walker Art Center,About the Walker Art Center [Website] (2006, accessed 10 June 2006); available from http://info.walkerart.org/about/history.wac
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67
WAC has maintained a long-term relationship with Walker. She has been
presented at the museum in four group exhibitions including, No Place (Like Home)
displayed in 1997,Art in Our Time: 1950 to the Present shown in 1999,Black History
Month, which was also exhibited in 1999, and Quartet, WAC’s most recent presentation
of Walker’s art. WAC will present Walker’s art for the fifth time by providing a solo
exhibition for her in 2007.123
In Black History Month, Walker’s art was presented within a multidisciplinary
group exhibition that featured performance and visual art from WAC’s collection created
by black artists.124 TheBlack History Month exhibit was the first and only time Walker’s
art was featured in an all black artistic presentation at WAC that focused on the race. The
pros and cons of showcasing group exhibitions that are centered on the race / ethnicity of
the artists displayed has been debated within the United States. Art critics, scholars and
artists have expressed concern about group exhibitions that focus solely on art created by
black artists. In 1969, the Black Emergency Coalition, a black arts activist group,
advocated for an increase in solo exhibitions for black artists.125 David Driskell, an art
professor and an avid collector of art created by black artists, warns that these exhibitions
have to potential classify exceptional art created by black artists as great black art instead
of simply labeling the work great art. June Kelly, an art dealer, echoes Driskell’s
sentiment by stating “There are African American artists who should be right beside
Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.” “
123 LaViscount, "Phone Interview with Yasmil Raymond." 124 Walker Art Center, Walker Art Center Archives [Website] (1999, accessed 4 July 2006); available from http://www.walkerart.Org/archive/E/AB735D1724C47F9D6168.htm. 125 Grace Glueck, "Into the Mainstream, Everybody,"New York Times, 15 June 1969, D24. 126 June Kelly quoted in Kinsella: 119.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68
Driskell and other arts administrators also understand that the display of black
group exhibitions may be necessary for institutions that have just begun to incorporate
black art within their exhibitions and collections. Historically, art museums in the United
States have had a poor record of including black art within their exhibitions and
collections. Some arts administrators consider the display of black group exhibitions to
be a necessary act, making the public more aware that a diversity of black art does indeed
exist.127 Art critic Holland Cotter asserts that ethnic or racially based exhibitions
continue to be the main resource used to expose the public to minority artists. According
to Cotter:
The count of black, Latino, and Asian American artists in the mainstream is higher than it was a decade ago, but it is still not high, as the average tour of Chelsea or Williamsburg, Brooklyn will confirm. For minority artists, identity- specific exhibitions, whatever their drawbacks, remain the primary means of visibility.128
Yasmil Raymond, one of the curators that worked on the display of Walker’s art
in Quartet , would disagree with Cotter. During a 2006 interview Raymond asserted that
the mainstream art sectors’ inclusion of art created by African American’s has greatly
improved. 1 ? Q It appears that the curatorial staff at WAC believe that group exhibitions,
which focus on black artists, are no longer needed. Transiting to a different curatorial
focus, WAC’s twenty-first century group exhibitions have not centered on the race of the
artists. Furthermore, WAC chose not to refer to any other black artists within their
educational and marketing tools associated with Quartet.
127 Kinsella, 118-120,123. 128 Holland Cotter, "Beyond Multiculturalism, Freedom?,"New York Times, 29 July 2001, AR1. 129 Takenya LaViscount, “Phone Interview with Yasmil Raymond,” (Washington DC: 2006)
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 69
The educational and marketing tools that are used to supplement WAC’s
exhibitions include their extensive website, a text that includes an in-depth discussion of
WAC’s collections entitled Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a
Whole: Walker Art Center Collections, and “Art on Call,” a devise that replaces the
traditional museum audio tour. “Art on Call,” allows a museum attendee to learn about
the artist displayed in an exhibition through the use of their cell phone. A visitor can call
the number placed on an exhibition label and hear a brief statement from a WAC curator
or a statement from the artist displayed. WAC does publish catalogues for some of their
exhibitions; however, there are exhibitions, such as Quartet, that are presented without a
formal catalogue.
In Quartet, each artist had a separate gallery for the display of their artwork. The
exhibition included a selection of Walker’s drawings, paintings, one large scale silhouette
installation entitled Endless Conundrum, An African Anonymous Adventuress, and an
innovative animated film entitled Testimony. The educational and marketing tools used to
supplement Quartet contained both curatorial statements and statements from Walker. In
2005 Walker lectured about her art at WAC while Quartet was still on display at the
institution. The text Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole:
Walker Art Center Collections contains an essay written by Philippe Vergne, who was the
chief curator for Quartet. WAC’s website provides statements from other WAC curators
about Walker’s art. Although these curatorial statements about Walker’s art differ, one
constant theme is present - every curatorial explanation of Walker’s art lacks any blatant
reference to other black artists.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70
In Quartet, WAC situated Walker’s art within an exhibition that displayed three
Caucasian artists. Lowery Sims, the director of the Studio Museum in Harlem (SMH)
admits that displaying all black artist exhibitions can be a “catch-22.” According to
Lowery:
We’re [the Studio Museum] trying to make the point that African American art is just one aspect of American art that needs to be seen. But it makes sense that there may be a way that people deal with issues of identity that have many 1 commonalities among their peers.
WAC connected Walker’s art to her peers by emphasizing her age, not her race.
All four artists in Quartet were by described by WAC as a younger group of
contemporary artists that WAC has maintained a long-term relationship with.131 The
artwork created by Barney, Gober, and Levine contain aesthetic differences; however,
broad thematic connections can be made when all four artists are compared. Barney’s
sculptures and performances explore the intricacies of the body. He often performs
mythological characters in his films. DRA WING RESTRAINT 7 contains references to
ancient Greek mythology and the Cremaster cycle is a series of five films that investigate
the anatomy of the body, sexuality and mythology. Quartet displayed a few of the
photographic and sculptural components from the second Cremaster cycle. 132 Gober’s
sculptural works illustrate his on-going fascination with functional, every day objects.
Crates, sinks, chairs and other practical objects are often paired with replicas of body
parts in order to illustrate our expectations regarding childhood development, gender
Lowery Sims quoted in Kinsella: 120. 131 Takenya LaViscount, “Phone Interview with Yasmil Raymond,” (Washington DC: 2006) 132 Douglas Fogle, "Matthew Barney," inBits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance o f a Whole: Walker Art Center Collections ed. Joan Rothfitss and Elizabeth Carpenter (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2005), 117-118. Center, Walker Art Center Cun-ent Exhibitions^accessed).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71
identity, sexuality and religion.133 Levine’s art complicates our understanding of
authorship and questions the validity of connoisseurship. By appropriating the work of
renowned Western artists, Levine’s paintings and sculptures redefine classic art icons and
while blurring the boundaries of high and popular art.134 Barney, Gober, Levine and
Walker all explore Western conceptions regarding sexuality and the body. Both Walker’s
and Barney’s art have performative elements. Levine and Walker are similar due to the
fact that both artists question the high art/low art dichotomy. While Levine appropriates
the work of famous Western artists, Walker makes use of silhouettes, an inexpensive
i craft Caucasian women made use of during nineteenth century.
The reasons why WAC presented Walker along side exceptional artists that are
not black are obvious. Mainstream art museums should communicate to the public that
that exceptional art created by black artists deserve the label “great art” instead stead of
the label “great black art.” WAC’s presentation of Walker’s art was problematic because
of their negative reference to other black artists. While Raymond may believe that the
number of black artists who receive exhibitions within the mainstream art sector has
greatly improved, there are arts administrators that disagree with her assessment.
According to Corinne Jennings, the director of Kenkeleba Gallery in New York City: “In
some ways the contemporary art scene is worse because people who use derogatory
133 Richard Flood and Linda Nochlin, "Robert Gober," in Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance o f a Whole: Walker Art Center Collections, ed. Joan Rothfuss and Elizabeth Carpenter (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2005), 234-235, 239. Center, Walker Art Center Current Exhibitions(accessed). 134 Richard Flood, "Sherrie Levine," in Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance o f a Whole: Walker Art Center Collections, ed. Joan Rothfuss and Elizabeth Carpenter (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2005), 340-342. Center, Walker Art Center Current Exhibitions(accessed). 135 Corris and Flobbs: 438.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72
images, often originally created by white artists, can find quick support.”136 Instead of
communicating that there is a diversity of art created by black artists that deserves
recognition, the presentation of Walker’s art with Quartet could have communicated to
the viewer that WAC prefers to display art created by black artists who incorporate
familiar racial stereotypes.
Before the museum attendee entered Quartet they were greeted by a warning sign
that stated “This exhibition contains mature content.” Within the gallery space devoted to
Walker’s art, the wall text and the “art-on-call” segments were brief. These two
educational tools did not provide enough information to help a spectator make sense of
Walker’s seductive, but disturbing imagery. In this case, WAC used sound judgment by
providing a warning sign for the exhibition attendee. According to Reesa Greenberg, an
art historian and a museum consultant, warning signs can have important benefits for the
museum audience. Her article “The Display of the Transgressive: Art in the Museum”
provides a discussion about the curatorial techniques that have been used for the public
presentation of controversial art. Within the article she explains the potential advantages
warning signs can offer to the viewer by stating:
Rather than the abrupt, sudden, confrontational formula associated with the artistic or political avant-garde where visitors are not warned, as in The Perfect Moment, or warnings used as a dare, as in Sensation, the transformational potential of the exhibition experience can be conceived in terms of a developmental learning model that is gradual and slow. Risk, surprise, and confusion are reduced; the unexpected, destabilizing encounter is minimized to allow a safer space for contemplation.137
135 Corinne Jennings quoted in Kinsella: 123. 137 Greenberg, 90-91.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73
However, WAC’s presentation of Walker’s art needed more than the warning sign
in order to create an environment where the density of Walker’s art could be understood.
Walker’s animated film Testimony contains graphically violent imagery, including a
scene where a white male slave meets his fate when he is hung from a noose. According
to art critic Michele Asselin, in the film Testimony:
Walker retells the fantasy of slaves turning the tables on masters. The film is silent, scratched, and shaky so as to look like footage from a century ago, when D.W Griffith turned a hymn to white supremacy into the screen classic, The Birth of a Nation (1915). The libidinal naive blacks who are subdued by the Ku Klux Klan in Griffith’s film are no more grotesquely stereotyped than the slave woman with huge lips and tiny braids who cracks the whip on the former masters.138
The main character in Testimony is a young “jezebel,” who owns the white slaves
living on her plantation. The young “jezebel” abuses her power throughout the film. The
film includes most of Walker’s signature motifs. The animated silhouettes are visually
stunning and seductive even as they participate in violent, sexually graphic acts. Walker
inserts herself into the animated piece both figuratively and literally. Often, Walker’s arm
and hands can be seen manipulating the silhouetted characters, which brings Testimony
into the realm of performance art. WAC’s educational supplements did not contain any
commentary about Testimony, creating an exhibition space where the spectator was left to
figure out the meanings embedded in Walker’s grotesque imagery on their own.
Walker’s other artworks displayed in Quartet were supplemented with vague
assessments from WAC’s staff that did not clearly allude to Walker’s critique of racial
and gender based stereotypes, or the way in which Walker attempts to alert us to our own
unconscious internalization of stereotypes. Philippe Vergne, the chief curator for the
138 David D’Arcy, "The Eyes o f the Storm: Kara Walker on Hurricanes, Heroes and VillainsModem " Painters, April 2006, 61.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74
display of Walker’s art in Quartet, introduced Walker before she began a lecture at
WAC. Both his opening remarks for Kara Walker’s lecture and his discussion of her
work in Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole: Walker Art
Center Collections are very similar. It seems as if Vergne was reading from the WAC’s
collections text for his opening remarks. During his introduction for Walker’s lecture at
WAC and in the WAC’s collections text, Vergne states that Walker’s art is reminiscent of
artwork created by Francesco Goya, Egon Schiele, and Antonin Artaud. An explanation
for how Walker’s art is actually connected Goya’s, Schiele’s, and Artaud’s artwork is not
provided in Vergne’s opening remarks or in the educational tools that WAC supplies for
the viewer.
WAC’s website connected Walker’s art to a different set of artists than Vergne.
On their website WAC listed Zarina Bhimji, Jackie Copeland, Nick Deocampo, Willie
Doherty, Kay Hassan, Kcho, N.A., Gary Simmons and Meyer Vaisman in the “related
artists” category on the collections webpage that addressed Walker’s art. All of these
artists, with the exception of NA, were exhibited in No Place (like home)', a group
exhibition displayed at WAC in 1997 that included Walker’s art. A statement offering an
explanation for how Walker’s art is connected to the artists that were displayed in No
I 'IQ Place (like home) was not provided on WAC’s website. WAC published a catalogue
for the No Place (like home) exhibition, however, the catalogue was not available for the
museum attendee to view when Quartet was displayed. No Place (like home), curated by
Richard Flood, was a multicultural group exhibition that featured a racially/ethnically
139 Walker Art Center, The Walker Art Center Collections and Resources [Website] (2006, accessed 6 June 2006); available from http://collections.walkerart.org/item/agent/1250.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75
mixed group of artists from the United States and abroad. The exhibition also included
another African American artist, Gary Simmons. Each artist visualized their
understanding of home and the inclusion of Walker’s art within this exhibition
highlighted Walker’s traumatic experiences in Atlanta. Access to the catalogue for No
Place (like home) would have provided a very helpful educational tool for the spectator
of Quartet. The catalogue includes a Walker interview. The concise, but thorough
interview provides a worthwhile discussion concerning important themes that are
repeated in Walker’s artwork, such as her traumatic move to the South that gave her the
feeling of being sent back in time, and the way in which her collection of racist
memorabilia has affected her artistic process.140 The interview provides a clear context
for the display of Walker’s art and certainly makes Walker’s racial and gendered
subjectivity more blatant than the educational tools that were designed to accompany
Quartet.
WAC’s website included a curatorial statement from Vergne. In this statement,
Vergne admits that he has a hard time discussing Walker’s artwork because he is from
Europe and he considers her art to be rooted in Southern, United States history and
culture.141 When he introduced Walker for her lecture at WAC, he explained that he
comes from France, “a country that has yet to acknowledge its colonial history.”142
140 Richard Flood, No Place (Like Home): Zarina Bhimji, Nick Deocampo, Willie Doherty, Kay Hassan, Kcho, Gary Simmons, Meyer Vaisman, Kara Walker (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1997). 14' Ibid- 142 The Kara Walker lecture and interview that took place at the Walker Art Center in 2005 was filmed. The video, which contains the lecture and interview, can be downloaded from the Walker Art Center’s website. Walker Art Center, Walker Art Channel [Website] (2005, accessed 5 June 2006); available from http://channel.walkerart.org/detail.wac?id=2013.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76
Vergne’s curatorial honesty and his willingness to consider the way in which his
own cultural origins impact his view of Walker’s art are commendable. It is true that
Walker’s experiences in the United States prompted her to create art fused with identity
politics. However, Europe did receive slaves from the transatlantic slave trade. The
“Jezebel” and the “Mammy” are transnational stereotypes. In fact, Walker even addresses
the ways in black femininity is perceived abroad in her silhouette installation Endless
Conundrum, An African Anonymous Adventuress (Figure 8), which is displayed in same
exhibition that Vergne curated at WAC.
In Endless Conundrum Walker includes a silhouette depiction of Josephine Baker
among other figures that represent a transnational fascination with black, sexualized
“others.” As Vergne explains in Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a
Whole: Walker Art Center Collections:
The cut-paper composition [. Endless Conundrum] is dominated by a silhouette evoking Josephine Baker-the ‘black Venus,’ the ‘black pearl,’ the ‘Creole Goddess’— being stripped of the banana skirt that took Europe by storm in the 1920s and 1930s. Baker, the Missouri-born singer, dancer and actress who faced a violent racist reaction in America, embodies a fascination with the ‘other,’ and in Walker’s composition she is swallowed into an epic, sexualized, dramatic, and historical narrative.143
143 Philippe Vergne, "Kara Walker," inBits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance o f a Whole: Walker Art Center Collections, ed. Joan Rothfuss and Elizabeth Carpenter (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2005), 564-566.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77
Figure. 8. Kara Walker. Endless Conundrum, An African Anonymous Adventuress. 2001. Silhouette images cut from brown and black paper, overall installed 180 x 420 in. Illustration courtesy of Brent Sikkema Gallery, New York City. Image reprinted from Walker Art Center, The Walker Art Center Collections and Resources [Website] (2006, accessed 6 June 2006); available from http://collections.walkerart.org/item/agent/1250
Vergne fails to include any commentary about the complexity of Josephine Baker’s
precarious career in Europe. With the exception of his statement that Baker “took Europe
by storm,” Vergne’s reading of Endless Conundrum is tied solely to the culture and
history of the United States.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78
But what does taking “Europe by Storm” really mean? During the 1920s Baker sought a
career as a Broadway performer, but was repeatedly turned down for roles because within
the entertainment industry in the United States, her skin color was considered to be too
dark. Baker moved to France and attained celebrity status as an exotic performer. In
France she was considered to be a hyper-sexual black woman, representing “primitive”
sexuality. While the “jezebel” was considered to be a threat in America, the “jezebel”
was revered in France.144
J
Figure. 9. Kara Walker. Endless Conundrum, An African Anonymous Adventuress. 2001. Silhouette images cut from brown and black paper, overall installed 180 x 420 in. (detail) Courtesy of Brent Sikkema Gallery, New York City.
Despite the fact that Vergne recognized the Josephine Baker silhouette in Endless
Conundrum, he does not explain the transnational relevance imbedded in Endless
Conundrum. His comment implies that the perception of Baker within the United States
was problematic but the perception of Baker in France was not. By placing a replica of
Baker in her work, Walker positions the “jezebel” stereotype as a transnational myth. In
Endless Conundrum, Walker does not claim that the perception of black femininity was
more or less of a problem in Europe. Both cultural perceptions objectified the black
144 Farrington, 80. Willis and Williams, 98-101.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79
female body, restrained black femininity, and contained racially-charged sexual
mythology.
The brief “Art on Call,” segment WAC provided for Walker’s art contained a
short statement from an interview that took place in 1996. While we could not hear the
questions that were posed to Walker during this interview, we were provided with a short
statement from Walker. Walker explains that silhouettes convey a certain form of visual
seductiveness, which proved to be the best medium for her to depict United States’
history and the stereotypical “characters” that Walker believes she unconsciously
performed in Atlanta. The interview segment is short and does not provide a statement
from Walker explaining who these “characters” are.145 Access to the No Place (like
home) catalogue would have been particularly helpful addition in this case. The interview
in the catalogue asserts that Walker’s collection of racist memorabilia depicted the
“characters” Walker performed.
The wall text in the gallery provides Vergne’s explanation for why Walker’s art is
controversial. In fact, this was the only topic presented. The selection of Walker’s
drawings that were displayed in Quartet were created in 1997 and contained Walker’s
artistic response to her critics.146 The other artworks that were displayed within the
exhibition are not illustrations of Walker’s reaction to the controversies. Often, an
exhibition will include a short statement within their wall text that broadly addresses all
of the art work shown in an exhibition, but WAC chose not use this technique.
145 Information about the “Art on Call” segment used to explain walker’s art can be found on the Walker Art Center’s website. Walker Art Center, Walker Art Center A n on Call [Website] (2006, accessed 8 June 2006); available from http://newmedia.walkerart.org/aoc/index.wac. 146 Takenya LaViscount, “Phone Interview with Yasmil Raymond,” (Washington DC: 2006).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80
The wall text describes the group that has a problem with the display of Walker’s
art as “An older generation of African American artists.” The specific names of these
African American artists are not given. Vergne’s essay in Bits & Pieces Put Together to
Present a Semblance of a Whole: Walker Art Center Collections describes Walker’s
critics in the same manner, but also provides the names of two African American artists
that have voiced concern about Walker’s popularity; Betty Saar and Howardena Pindell.
Pindell has complained about the way in which Walker’s critics are described. In her
essay “Diaspora/Realities/Strategies” Pindell provides a different description of the group
of people that are concerned about the display Walker’s art. She explains that:
Recently there has been a swift negative response from a number of African- American artists, art historians, and museum curators to the rapid embrace of Kara Walker and Michael Ray Charles. Although the protests are multi- generational, the other side insists that it is specifically, and only, older people who object. There has been, however, a muffled, restrained, fearful response from more conservative sectors of the African American community, perhaps fearful because of the ostracism and trivialization of those who object, by those behind the trend.147
Within WAC’s collection text, Vergne describes Saar’s and Pindell’s complaints as
“violent criticism.” The use of the word “violent” seems to be a careless exaggeration.
Pindell and Saar have passionately argued that art museums in the United States need to
include a diversity of art created by black artists. The two artists have also expressed
serious concern about the audience reception of Walker’s art. Saar and Pindell are
worried that the spectator of Walker’s art may simply assume that Walker confirms
derogatory stereotypes about black people. In her book The Bodies that were not Ours
147 Pindell read her Conference Paper, “Diaspora/Realities/Strategies” at the Johannesburg Biennale in 1997. Her conference paper can be found in its entirety on the N. Paradoxa website. Howardena Pindell, Diaspora/Realities/Strategies [Website] (N. Paradoxa, 1997, accessed 28 Dec 2005); available from http://web.ukonline.co.Uk/n.paradoxa/pindell.htm
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81
and Other Writings, Coco Fusco, who is an artist, art critic, and curator, provides a
discussion about the public framing of the controversy that has developed from the
display of Walker’s art. According to Fusco “critics both black and white who have
joined the neoformalist bandwagon by dismissing any concern about art’s relation to the
social as philistinism, focus on her [Kara Walker] as the victim of “political
correctness.”148 Quartet confirms Fusco’s claim. When Vergne addresses the
controversy, any concerns about the audience reception of Walker’s art and museum
responsibility in regards to the inclusion of art created by black artists are set aside.
Unfortunately, WAC's presentation of Walker’s art gives Saar’s, and Pindell’s,
argument some validity. The fact that Walker’s art was presented with artwork created by
Barney, Gober and Levine is not an inherent problem. The real problem is that WAC
decided to provide an overly simplistic analysis of the controversy that surrounds the
display Walker’s art - an analysis that demonizes “an older generation of African
American artists.” To add insult it injury, there were no references made to other black
artists within the exhibition space or in WAC’s educational materials that are used to
accompany the presentation of Walker’s art. This act is at odds with Walker’s description
of the artists that have influenced her artistic production. During interviews, Walker has
explained that she appreciates and has been influenced by the work of Andy Warhol as
well as Robert Colescott, who happens to be an older African American artist and Adrian
Piper, an African American postmodern artist who also incorporates irony, identity
148 Coco Fusco, "Captain Shit and Other Allegories of Black Stardom," in The Bodies That Were Not Ours : And Other Writings (London ; New York: Routledge in collaboration with Institute of International Visual Arts, 2001), 38.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82
politics and performance into her art.149 Furthermore, Walker’s animated film, Testimony,
was partially inspired by Oscar Micheaux’s films.150 Micheaux was an African American
director who created “race films,” which were shown during the early twentieth century
to inspire black communal pride.151 It would have been easier for the spectator to
understand Walker’s art if WAC had acknowledged the black and white artists that have
influenced Walker, instead of simply castigating “an older generation of black artists.”
The most helpful educational component that accompanied the Quartet exhibition
was the lecture and interview that took place at WAC in June 2005. Walker provided a
lengthy discussion about her art and was also interviewed by Vergne. Walker’s lecture
and the interview contrasted with the presentation of Walker’s art within the exhibition
space, in WAC’s collections text, the “Art on Call” segment, and the curatorial
statements on WAC’s webpage. The topics discussed by Walker during her lecture and
during her interview with Vergne provided the museum attendee with an in-depth
explanation about Walker’s influences, Walker’s career, and the subject matter portrayed
in Walker’s artwork. During the lecture Walker positioned her art within a discussion of
black artistic and literary expression, while also referencing other aspects of United
States culture that have impacted her artistic manifestations. Walker mentioned that she
149 Nickas and Walker, 154. Hannaham,Pea , Ball, Bounce [Website] (LookSmart Find Articles, 1998, accessed 3 March 2006); available from http://www.findarticles.eom/p/articles/mi_ml285/is_nl l_v28/ai_21248654. 150 D'Arcy, 61. During the interview Raymond mentioned that Walker had been influenced by Micheaux’s films when she created Testimony. Raymond agreed with my assessments that a curatorial statement about Testimony should be placed on WAC’s webpage. Takenya LaViscount, “Phone Interview with Yasmil Raymond,” (Washington DC: 2006). 151 Thomas Cripps, ""Race Movies" As Voices of the Black Bourgeoisie: The Scar of Shame " in Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video ed. Valerie Smith (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press 1997), 52.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83
had been influenced by Oscar Micheaux’s films when she created Testimony and that the
American, iconic film Gone with the Wind has also inspired her artistic creations. 152
Throughout the evening that the lecture and interview took place, Walker
communicated to the audience that she uses her art to address her own internalized
oppression and to interrogate black femininity as a social, economic and political
construct. She stated that Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple have impacted her artistic vision. Walker connected her
art to her own experiences and identity by explaining that her art contains “black
feminized” illustrations, where black women are the main protagonists. When asked by
an audience member if she has an ideal audience, she explained that “women of color”
are the group that she usually has in mind when she creates her art.153 In order for the
viewer to fully comprehend the intricate meanings embedded in Walker’s art, it would
have been helpful if WAC maintained consistency by offering descriptions of her art
which reflected Walker’s lecture and the interview. A museum attendee who did not have
the time to attend Walker’s lecture and interview at WAC, or view the lengthy webcast
provided on WAC’s website, could have easily misunderstood Walker’s art when
viewing it in Quartet. A museum attendee with little knowledge of her art could have
mistakenly assumed that Walker simply confirms racist and sexist stereotypes.
The staff at WAC designed multiple forms of communication that are used to
supplement exhibitions in order to accommodate different types of learning styles.
Providing the museum attendee with various options for how they can learn about an
152 Walker’s lecture and interview can be viewed from the Walker’s Art Centers’ webpage. [Website] (The Walker Art Center, The Walker Channel, 2006, accessed 8 June 2006); available from http://channel.walkerart.org/detail.wac?id=2013. 153 Ibid.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84
artist on display is innovative and timely. As Raymond explained during an interview,
some visitors do not like to read wall text so WAC tries to reach a diverse audience
through the use of their website, “art-on-call” and the computers placed within the
museum.154 Unfortunately, the modes of communication designed for Quartet did not
offer consistency. “Art-on-Call,” the exhibition wall text, and the essay provided in
WAC’s collection text did not communicate the intricacies of Walker’s art or provide a
thoughtful analysis describing why some viewers are uncomfortable with the images
Walker includes in her art. Instead, each educational tool, with the exception of the
Walker lecture and interview, provided vague messages, that did not clearly
communicate the subversive aspects of Walker’s illustrations. When Quartet was
displayed, WAC may have lost the potential to reach an audience unfamiliar with
Walker’s art considering that some museum attendees would prefer not to sit through a
lengthy lecture and interview.
According to Raymond, Quartet was exhibited to showcase WAC’s collection in
light of their newly expanded exhibition space.155 That goal was well understood by
critics who spent more time praising WAC’s impressive new space than the art WAC
actually displayed in the museum. WAC’s curatorial staff does understand how to
manipulate the gallery space in order to emphasize important themes embedded in
Walker’s art. WAC’s 1999 group exhibition Art in Our Time: 1950 to the Present,
displayed Walker’s art by placing her work within a small gallery in order to emphasize
154 Takenya LaViscount, “Phone Interview with Yasmil Raymond,” (Washington DC: 2006). 155 Ibid.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 85
the personal elements of Walker’s art. According to Joan Rothfuss, a curator who worked
on the presentation of Walker’s art in this group exhibition:
We’ve installed it [Walker’s art] in a small room in the gallery because it is a very intimate piece. Our feeling was that viewers would want to go in and have time to spend very closely looking at and reading the pieces and have a chance to do that to do that in a small space where they could be sort of alone with it, as if you were reading a book and get the feeling of that intimate one-to-one connection with the work. It’s really a kind of look inside the mind of the artist and I think it’s interesting for that reason.156
In Quartet , the placement of Walker’s animated piece, Testimony, in a small gallery had a
similar effect. The intimacy of the gallery, combined with the image of Walker’s hands
manipulating the animated silhouette characters within the film, emphasized the diary
like quality of Walker’s art. While, critics that reviewed Quartet complimented WAC’s
new architectural additions, they did not communicate in their reviews that they
understood the way in which WAC’s new space emphasized important themes imbedded
in Walker’s art. Other museum attendees may not have recognized the connection
between the WAC’s use of their space and the work displayed, given that WAC did not
include any commentary about Testimony on their website.
In his article “The Walker: An Alternative to the Mainstream,” critic Joel
Henning explained that the artwork created by the artists featured in Quartet “are more
discomforting to museum audiences that Matisse and Picasso.” He continues to explain
that WAC has installed computers in the museum so that a museum attendee can retrieve
more information about the artists displayed.’57 He does not, however, state whether or
not the electronic information provided by WAC actually helps the viewer decipher
156 Walker Art Center,Curatorial Commentaiy: Jane Rothfuss Discusses Kara Walker's Do You Like Creme in Your Coffee and Chocolate in Your Milk? (1997){\999, accessed 30 Dec 2005); available from http://collections.walkerart.org/item/text.html?id=533. 157 Joel Henning, "The Walker: An Alternative to the Mainstream,”Wall Street Journal, 20 Oct 2005, D8.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86
unnerving images. Holland Cotter’s review of Quartet, featured in the New York Times,
only contains one statement about Walker, which is about her age. Instead of providing a
critique of the art displayed in the exhibition, Cotter states that Walker, Barney, Gober,
and Levine all represent a younger generation of artists whose work WAC has
collected.158 Both Cotter and Henning did provide detailed explanations about the way in
which WAC’s new space incorporates the urban environment that surrounds it and the
elegance and versatility of the new galleries. While Quartet did receive positive critical
reviews, critics did not actually discuss the merits of Walker’s art within their articles. In
fact, the critics that reviewed Quartet barely communicated that they had any
understanding of the themes conveyed through her artwork.
WAC’s presentation of Walker’s art did not provide a clear context for
interpreting the sensitive imagery displayed in Walker’s art. According to Greenberg:
As much as museum visitors want the reassurance of the familiar, they also expect new experiences. Their willingness to engage with the alien, the unpleasant, the dangerous depends on limited or gradual exposure and the assurance of support, either educational or emotional.159
Visitors who are not familiar with Walker’s art need clear educational support in order to
understand the complexities of Walker’s illustrations. Additionally, the staff at WAC
should have considered the implications of castigating an “older generation” of black
artists who have advocated against the exclusion of black art within mainstream art
museums. A lot of mainstream art museums, WAC included, are actively trying to
increase the number of minorities who visit their museum.160 The staff at WAC may not
158 Holland Cotter, "Probing Fringes, Finding Stars," New York Times, 15 April 2005, 31. 159 Greenberg, 86. 160 Kathy Halbreich, "Foreword," inExpanding the Center: Walker Art Center and Herzog & De Meuron, ed. Andrew Blauvelt (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center 2005), 6.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87
have been conscious of the potential messages they imparted to the public, therefore, the
conclusion of this study provides suggestions for how WAC, and other mainstream
museums could improve their presentation of Walker’s art.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION
Since there is no way of telling which image is meant to be ‘read’ first, the threads of the narrative that one can build are multiple. Confronted by such quandaries, the viewer may actually opt for escape rather than engagement. As Walker herself suggests, sometimes her images actually provide the means to do just so since they can often be dainty enough to allow ‘the viewer an out,’ a way so that s/he doesn’t ‘have to [really] see.’ The delicacy of some of her drawings can soften the shock of her images and allow viewers to bypass the difficult questions her work presents. Glenda Rossana Carpio "Critical Memory in the Fiction of Slavery." Dissertation, University of California, 2002.
Now that each museum has been analyzed separately, the conclusion of this thesis
will compare the presentation of Kara Walker’s art at Studio Museum in Harlem (SMH)
and the Walker Art Center (WAC). In addition to providing a comparison of the two
museums, the following chapter will also offer suggestions for how mainstream museums
can improve their presentation of Walker’s art. Mainstream art museums can become
institutions that successfully convey the attributes of Walker’s art, however, the staff who
work for mainstream art museums do need to provide a clear context for the display of
Walker’s sensitive illustrations and take audience reception into account. Mainstream art
museums should also acknowledge their history of excluding the collection and display
of black art.
88
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89
The presentation of Walker’s art does fulfill both SMH’s and WAC’s mission.
Considering the communal expectations that are associated with black museums, SMH
took a risky, but innovative step in the right direction by displaying Walker’s art.
Exhibiting Walker’s art appropriately coincides with SMH’s mission to expand our
understanding of black artistic practice. WAC, is a museum that is committed to
collecting and presenting avant-garde art. WAC’s staff includes museum professionals
that have an extensive history of working with performance artists to showcase their
work at the museum. Given WAC’s history as a museum that values performance art, the
multidisciplinary art institution has the potential to become one of the most suitable
venues to display Walker’s animation and other performance-based art. The staff at WAC
also understands how to utilize the gallery space within the museum in order to
communicate important themes embedded in Walker’s art.
While Kara Walker’s personal testimonials, illustrated figuratively throughout her
artwork, critique derogatory racial and gender stereotypes, her artwork is quite
ambiguous. Audience reception must be taken in to account when her artwork is
displayed. A spectator of Walker’s art might mistakenly assume that Walker is simply
confirming racist and sexist mythology without critiquing our assumptions about the way
in which we see the “other,” however, museums that display Walker’s art can lessen the
chance that this will occur. Kara Walker: Excavated from the Heart of a Black Negress, a
solo exhibition featured at SMH in 2003, decreased the likelihood that a spectator would
mistakenly assume that Walker is buying into racist and sexist rhetoric. The museum’s
communication tools conveyed Walker’s own self-analysis and her desire for the viewer
to participate in the same act of self-scrutiny. Their educational resources also made
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 90
Walker’s art appear less ambiguous by connecting her art to other artwork created by
post-modern black artists.
The display of Walker’s art is an arduous undertaking for museum professionals
because her art contains graphic illustrations depicting painful instances of racism and
sexism within the United States and abroad. This task may seem particularly daunting for
museum professionals who work for mainstream art museums. Within mainstream art
museums the sensitive content embedded in Walker’s art is complicated by the legacy of
racial exclusion within mainstream art museums. WAC’s 2005 presentation of Walker’s
artwork within the exhibition Quartet did not quell the potential problems that can be
encountered when her artwork is displayed. WAC chose not to contextualize Walker’s art
within a black, post-modern framework. The end result was that a museum attendee
could have come to the same conclusions that Howardina Pindell and Betty Saar have
publicly voiced. Additionally, the multiple educational tools that were provided for the
exhibition attendee were uneven, lacking a consistent message that would dispel the
misconception that Walker reproduces stereotypes without critiquing them.
There are different techniques that mainstream art museums can use that have the
potential to successfully communicate the attributes of Walker’s art to the public. WAC
could have presented Walker’s art within a group exhibition that included other black
artists in order to avoid an instance where the public could mistakenly assume that WAC
is participating in racial tokenism and does not value the diversity of art created by black
people. The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and the Dayton Institute of Art (DIA) are two
mainstream art institutions that have presented Walker’s art within group exhibitions
featuring artwork created by other black artists. Unlike WAC, both institutions have
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91
blatantly acknowledged the mainstream art sectors history of excluding the presentation
of art created by black artists and have considered the perspectives of museum attendees
that may be not familiar with post-modern art that incorporates minstrelsy.
The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) has boldly reexamined their collection of African
American art. Their 2005 exhibition Africa in America , a group exhibition that included
the display of Walker’s art, presented a variety of artistic approaches that African
American artists have used to illustrate the complexities of identity and experience.
Recognizing the lack of exposure a significant number of mainstream contemporary art
museums have given African American artists, SAM intentionally created a forum for
dialogue about pertinent issues regarding audience reception, racial exclusion and racial
inclusion within the museum space. For the promotion of the Africa in America, SAM ‘s
website included the statement:
For African-American audiences, however, the absence of art by and about their experiences can be a source of disappointment in American museums. As this museum ends a 4-year initiative called Deepening the Dialogue: Art and Audience, it was deemed a good time to look back through the collections and assess how well our holdings reflect this concern.161
Africa in America is one component of a four-year initiative at SAM entitled “Deepening
the Dialogue: Art and Audience.” The staff at SAM has self-consciously analyzed how
the museum has incorporated black art with their exhibitions and collections. 162
DIA is another example of a mainstream art museum that has made significant
progress in increasing the collection and display of art created by black artists, while also
161 [Website] (the Seattle Art Museum, Exhibitions Now on View, 2005, accessed 26 May 2005); available from http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibit/exhibitDetail.asp?WHEN=&eventID=7502 162 [Website] (the Seattle Art Museum, Exhibitions Now on View, 2005, accessed 26 May 2005); available from http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibit/exhibitDetail.asp?WHEN=&eventID=7502.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92
considering the audience reception of the works displayed. DIA has carefully and
successfully presented postmodern art incorporating racial stereotypes created by black
artists. Looking Forward, Looking Black was a group exhibition presented at DIA in
2002. The exhibition included Walker’s art and centered on the display of art that
addressed the presentation of the black body in American culture. Looking Forward,
Looking Black provided a clear context for the display of postmodern black art by
including racist black collectables / black memorabilia, created from 1880 through 1950.
The museum attendee was able to see the types of objects that Walker collects and
critiques within her artwork.
Tuliza Fleming, who was the curator for Looking Forward, Looking Black,
recognized that a significant percentage of DIA’s museum attendees were unfamiliar with
the controversy that has erupted over the display of postmodern black art that
incorporates stereotypes. For this reason, she felt it was necessary to provide a clear 1 context for display of such sensitive and ambiguous art. Similar to SAM, but unlike
WAC’s presentation of Walker’s art, DAI did not castigate black artists that are
uncomfortable with the display of postmodern minstrel art. In Looking Forward, Looking
Black, postmodern artists such as Walker and Michael Ray Charles were shown in
conjunction with other artists who created Black Empowerment and Black Nationalist
artwork during the 1960s and 1970s. Postmodern art, Black Empowerment art and Black
Nationalist art were presented to showcase the different, but equally valid techniques
163 Fleming, 36-37.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93
each generation has used to illustrate the complexities of racism, sexism and
oppression. 164
Group exhibitions that only feature black artists do have their drawbacks.
Walker’s artwork can be connected to other non-black artists who explore similar subject
matter, such as abuse of power, oppression and sexual mythology. Group exhibitions that
only feature black artists segregate art created by black artists, hampering the potential
for art of this nature to be seen by the public as great art instead of great black art.165
Despite the drawbacks, group exhibitions displayed at mainstream art museums, which
focus on black artists, are exhibitions that make the public aware that a diversity of black
art exists, and is a safe alternative for institutions that have just begun to include the
display of black art.166 Hopefully, the mainstream art sector will reach a point in time
when all black group exhibitions are no longer needed. At present, however, the
mainstream museum sector has yet to overcome the history of exclusion of black art.
While there are definitely mainstream art museums that have greatly improved their
inclusion of art created by black people, some museums have not improved their records
of exhibition diversity.
For the upcoming solo display of Walker’s art that will occur in 2007 at WAC,
the art institution may want to consider connecting Walker’s art to both non-black artists
who explore similar themes, and other postmodern black artist who also use their art as a
vehicle to provide commentary about United States history, racial and gender identity.
WAC owns artwork created by Robert Colescott and Adrian Piper, two postmodern black
164 Fleming, 36-37, [Website] (The Dayton Art Institute Past Exhibitions, 2006, accessed 22 June 2006); available from http://www.daytonartinstitute.org/exhibits/past_lookingforward.html. 165 Kinsella: 118-119. 166 Ibid, 120, 123.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 94
artists that have influenced Walker. WAC’s innovative educational tools can provide a
clear context for the display of Walker’s art. The section of WAC’s website devoted to an
analysis of Walker’s art can compare Walker’s art to other postmodern black artists that
are within WAC’s collection or at least, list the names of other postmodern black artists
in the in the “related artists” category on WAC’s collections webpage that addresses
Walker’s art.
Mainstream art museums that do not have the financial resources needed to hire a
black art specialist can create partnerships with identity-based museums. Some
mainstream art museums have collaborated with identity-based museums for certain art
exhibitions or have displayed a traveling exhibition from an ethnic museum. In 2001, the
Santa Monica Museum of Art displayed Freestyle, a group exhibition featuring young,
contemporary, black artists, which was organized by SMH and curated by Thelma
Golden.167 Adam Weinberg, the director of The Whitney Museum of American Art has
also created partnerships with black art museums and other black cultural organizations
for some of their exhibitions. In 2004, the Whitney displayed The Art of Romare
Bearden, a traveling exhibition organized by the National Gallery of Art in Washington,
DC. The staff at the Whitney developed additional programming connected to the
exhibition by collaborating with SMH, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black
»s o Culture and other African American cultural organizations located in New York City.
The staff who work for SMH have significant experience displaying a diversity of art that
has been created by black artists, therefore, SMH is better equipped than a lot of
167 Cotter, "Beyond Multiculturalism, Freedom?," AR1. 168 Montagne, 2-3.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95
mainstream art museums to display a solo exhibition for Walker. It may be beneficial for
the WAC to create a partnership with a black museum or black cultural organization for
their upcoming solo presentation of Walker’s art. Mainstream art museums may be able
to avoid the appearance that they are promoting painful racial and gender based
stereotypes through collaborations with identity based museums.
In his essay, “Minorities and Fine-Arts Museums”, Peter C. Marzio, the director
of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, voices the need for an increase in partnerships
between mainstream art museums and minority-oriented institutions. Foundations often
encourage their grantees to create partnerships with other institutions.169 Partnerships
between ethnic-specific museums and mainstream art museums have the potential to
create beneficial outcomes for all parties involved. Collaborations that include
mainstream art museums and black museums allow mainstream art museum professionals
to hone their skills for the presentation of art created by black artists. Partnerships of this
nature should also increase the diversity of curatorial perspectives that are included
within an exhibition and will lessen competition between mainstream art museums and
black museums.
There are multiple techniques that can be used to create a clear context for the
display of Walker’s art including group exhibitions that feature both Walker’s art and a
diversity of art created by other black artists, collaborations between mainstream art
museums and ethnic-specific museums, and the use of educational tools that
communicate who and what has influenced Walker’s artistic production. Additional
169 Francie Ostrower, "The Reality Underneath the Buzz of Partnerships: The Potentials and the Pitfalls of Partnering," Stanford Social Innovation Review (Spring 2005): 36.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96
scholarship, which evaluates the curatorial and audience development outcomes from
collaborations between mainstream art museums and identity-based museums, would be
helpful for art administrators.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Armstrong, Liz. "Kara Walker " In No Place (Like Home), ed. Kathleen Mclean, 102- 113. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1997.
Art, Museum of Modem. Conversations with Contemporary Artists: Kara Walker [Webpage]. 1999, accessed 28 December 2005; Available from http://www.moma.org/onlineproiects/conversations/kw f.html.
Artnet, and Donald Kuspit. Kara Walker's Cakewalk [Website], 2004 2003, accessed 5/19/2006 http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/kuspit/kuspitl l-4-03.asp.
Bal, Mieke, and Norman Bryson. "Semiotics and Art History."Art Bulletin 73, no. 2 (1991): 174-208.
Benetton, United Colors of. Press Area Image Gallery - Institutional Campaigns [Website]. United Colors of Benetton, 8 May 2005, accessed 3 June 2006; Available from http://press.benettongroup.com/ben en/image gallerv/campaigns/?branch id=110 9.
Berry, Ian. "Preface to Artists Writings." In Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress ed. Ian Berry, Darby English, Vivian Patterson and Mark Reinhardt, 6. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003.
Berry, Ian, Darby English, Vivian Patterson, and Mark Reinhardt, eds. Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003.
Bogle, Donald. "Black Beginnings: From Uncle Tom's Cabin to the Birth of a Nation " In Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video, ed. Valerie Smith, 13-24. New Jersey: Rutgers University, 1997.
Bowles, Juliette. "Extreme Times Call for Extreme Heroes." The International Review of African American Art 14, no. 3 (1997): 3-16, 64.
97
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98
Carpio, Glenda Rossana "Critical Memory in the Fiction of Slavery." Dissertation, University of California, 2002.
Center, Walker Art. Curatorial Commentary: Jane Rothfuss Discusses Kara Walker's Do You Like Creme in Your Coffee and Chocolate in Your Milk? (1997) 1999, accessed 30 Dec 2005; Available from http://collections.walkerart.org/item/text.html?id=533.
______. Walker Art Center Archives [Website], Minneapolis: 1999, accessed 4 July 2006; Available from http://www.walkerart.Org/archive/E/AB735D1724C47F9D6168.hbn.
______. Walker Art Center Collection Exhibitions [Website]. Minneapolis: 2005, accessed 5 June 2005; Available from http://calendar.walkerart.org/canopy.wac?id:=1520.
______. Walker Art Center Current Exhibitions [Website]. Minneapolis: 2005, accessed 5 June 2005; Available from http://visualarts.walkerart.org/detail.wac?id=1525&title=Current%2...
______. Walker Art Channel [Website]. Minneapolis: 2005, accessed 5 June 2006; Available from http://channel.walkerart.org/detail.wac?id=2013.
______. About the Walker Art Center [Website]. Minneapolis: 2006, accessed 10 June 2006; Available from http://info.walkerart.org/about/history.wac
______. Walker Art Center Art on Call [Website], Minneapolis: 2006, accessed 8 June 2006; Available from http://newmedia.walkerart.org/aoc/index.wac.
______. The Walker Art Center Collections and Resources [Website]. Minneapolis: 2006, accessed 6 June 2006; Available from http://collections.walkerart.org/item/agent/1250.
Collins, Patricia Hill. "U.S. Black Feminism in Transnational Context " In Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 227-249. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Company, The Quaker Oats. Aunt Jemima [Webpage], 2006, accessed 25 March http://www.auntjemima.com/.
Corris, Michael, and Robert Hobbs. "Reading Black through White in the Work of Kara Walker." Art History 26, no. 3 (2003): 423-441.
Cotter, Holland. "Shakingup a Harlem Museum." New York Times, 28 Feb 2000, El, E5.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99
______. "Beyond Multiculturalism, Freedom?" New York Times, 29 July 2001, AR1.
______. "Probing Fringes, Finding Stars." New York Times, 15 April 2005, 31.
Cripps, Thomas. ""Race Movies" As Voices of the Black Bourgeoisie: The Scar of Shame " In Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video ed. Valerie Smith, 61-81 New Jersey: Rutgers University Press 1997.
D'Arcy, David. "The Eyes of the Storm: Kara Walker on Hurricanes, Heroes and Villains " Modern Painters, April 2006, 54-61.
Dalton, Karen C.C. "The Past Is Prologue but Is Parody and Pastiche Progress? A Conversation." The International Review of African American Art 14, no. 3 (1997): 17-29.
Diaspora, The Museum of the African. Past Exhibitions [Website]. San Francisco: 2006, accessed 6 May 2006; Available from http://www.moadsf.org/exhibits/past/linkages/index.html.
Eakin, Hugh. "Crowds? No, Thanks. Same for Grants." The New York Times, 20 March 2005, 30.
Farrington, Lisa E Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists. New York Oxford University Press, 2005.
Fleming, Tuliza. "The "Museum Baby" Grows Up: Being a Curator in a Monochromatic Art Museum World." American Association of Museums: Museum News 84, no. 4 (2005): 32-37.
Flood, Richard. No Place (Like Home): Zarina Bhimji, Nick Deocampo, Willie Doherty, Kay Hassan, Kcho, Gary Simmons, Meyer Vaisman, Kara Walker. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1997.
______. "Sherrie Levine." In Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole: Walker Art Center Collections, ed. Joan Rothfuss and Elizabeth Carpenter, 340-343. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2005.
Flood, Richard, and Linda Nochlin. "Robert Gober." In Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole: Walker Art Center Collections, ed. Joan Rothfuss and Elizabeth Carpenter, 234-239. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2005.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100
Fogle, Douglas. "Matthew Barney." In Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole: Walker Art Center Collections ed. Joan Rothfuss and Elizabeth Carpenter, 116-121. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2005.
Fusco, Coco. "The Bodies That Were Not Ours." In The Bodies That Were Not Ours and Other Writings, 3-17. New York: Routledge, 2001.
______. "Captain Shit and Other Allegories of Black Stardom." In The Bodies That Were Not Ours : And Other Writings, 37-42. London ; New York: Routledge in collaboration with Institute of International Visual Arts, 2001.
Garrett, Shawn-Marie. "Return of the Repressed." Theater 32, no. 2 (2002): 26-43.
Giddings, Paula. When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America New York: Bantam Books, 1984.
Glueck, Grace. "Harlem Initiates First Art Museum." New York Times, 25 Sep 1968, 40.
______. "A Very Own Thing in Harlem." New York Times, 15 Sep 1968, D34.
______. "Into the Mainstream, Everybody." New York Times, 15 June 1969, D24.
______. "Less Downtown Uptown." New York Times, 20 Jul 1969, D19-D20.
Goings, Kenneth W. Mammy and Uncle Mose. Indianapolis: Indian University Press, 1994.
Golden, Thelma. "A Dialogue with Kara Walker." In Kara Walker: Pictures from Another Time, ed. Annette Dixon, 43-49. Michigan: University of Michigan Museum of Art, 2002.
Gopnik, Blake. "Romare Bearden, Rain or Shine." Washington Post 23 Sept 2003, C05.
______. "Kara Walker Wins Smithsonian Artist Award." The Washington Post, 15 April 2004, C05.
Greenberg, Reesa. "Playing It Safe? The Display of Transgressive Art in the Museum." In Mirroring Evil. Nazi Imagery/Moral Ambiguity/ Contemporary Art 85-95. New York The Jewish Museum and Rutgers University Press, 2002.
Halbreich, Kathy. "Foreword." In Expanding the Center: Walker Art Center and Herzog & De Meuron, ed. Andrew Blauvelt, 6-7. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center 2005.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101
Hannaham. Pea, Ball, Bounce [Website]. LookSmart Find Articles, 1998, accessed 3 March 2006; Available from http://www.findarticles.eom/p/articles/mi m!285/is nil v28/ai 21248654.
Harlem, The Studio Museum in. Exhibition Wall Text [Website]. New York: 2003, accessed 8 April 2006; Available from http://www.studiomuseum.org/pr/kwalker wall.html.
______. The Studio Museum in Harlem Press Room [Webpage]. New York City: 2003, accessed 19 April 2006; Available from http ://w ww. studiomuseum.org/mi ssion .html
______. Past Exhibitions [Webpage]. New York: 2006, accessed 4 June 2006; Available from http://www.studiomuseum.org/exhibitions past.html.
Harris, Michael D. "Aunt Jemima, the Fantasy Black Mammy/Servant." In Colored Pictures: Race and Visual Representation, 83-124. North Carolina: The University North of North Carolina Press, 2003.
______. "Jezebel, Olympia, and the Sexualized Woman." In Colored Pictures: Race and Visual Representation, 125-148. North Carolina: The University North of North Carolina Press, 2003.
Henning, Joel. "The Walker: An Alternative to the Mainstream." Wall Street Journal, 20 Oct 2005, D8.
Hill Collins, Patricia. "Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images." In Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2, 69-95. New York: Routledge, 2000.
James, Curtia Lynne. "Contemporary African American Art in New York Galleries and Museums: Patterns of Exclusion and Inclusion in the 1990s." Masters of Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2001.
Joo, Eungie. "Crisis to Collapse: The Racialized Subject in Contemporary American Art." Dissertation, University of California, 2002.
Kinsella, Eileen. "The Rise of African American Art " ARTnews 102, no. 8 (2003): 118- 123
LaViscount, Takenya. "Email Interview with Barry Gaither." Washington DC, 2006.
______. "Phone Interview with Yasmil Raymond." Washington DC, 2006.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 102
Lemer, Gerda. "The Case of Margaret Gamer." In Black Women in White America: A Documentary History, ed. Gerda Lemer, 60-63. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
Loukaitou-Sideris, Anastasia, and Carl Grodach. "National Narratives in Maritime and Ethnic Museums. Displaying and Celebrating The "Other": A Study of the Mission, Scope, and Roles of Ethnic Museums in Los Angeles " The Public Historian 26, no. 4 (2004): 49-71.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.
Moshenson, Edna. "The Emancipation Approximation." In Kara Walker: Deutshe Bank Collection, ed. Adriane Grigoteit and Friedhelm Hutte, 55-58. Frankfurt am Main: Deutsche Bank Art, 2003.
Murray, Soraya "Studio Museum in Harlem." International Review of African American Art 18, no. 4 (2002): 34.
Nickas, Bob, and Kara Walker. "Death and Dying." ArtForum 43, no. 2 (2004): 154.
Ostrower, Francie. "The Reality Underneath the Buzz of Partnerships: The Potentials and the Pitfalls of Partnering." Stanford Social Innovation Review (Spring 2005): 34- 41.
Parker, Ian. "Golden Touch.” The New Yorker 77, no. 43 (2002): 44-49.
Pindell, Howardena. Diaspora/Realities/Strategies [Website]. Johannesburg: N. Paradoxa, 1997, accessed 28 Dec 2005; Available from http://web.ukonline.co.Uk/n.paradoxa/pindeIl.htm
Podesva, Kristina, and Alison Pruchansky. "Exhibition History." In Kara Walker, Narratives of a Negress, ed. Ian Berry, Darby English and Mark Reinhardt, 185- 189. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003.
Reinhardt, Mark. "The Art of Racial Profiling " In Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress, ed. Ian Berry, Darby English, Vivian Patterson and Mark Reinhardt, 109-129. Massachusetts: MIT Press 2003.
Relations, The Museum of Public. The Advertiser's Holy Trinity: Aunt Jemima, Rastus, and Uncle Ben [Webpage]. 2006, accessed 25 March http://www.prmuseum.com/kendrix/trinity.html.
Ross, Andrew. "Golden Moment." ArtForum 40, no. 8 (2002): 27-28.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 103
Roumani, Rhonda, and Columbia University. Portrait of a Museum New York: 2002, accessed 1 June 2005; Available from http://www.im.columbia.edu/studentwork/race/2002/art-rhonda.shtml.
Ruffins, Fath Davis. "Mythos, Memory, and History: African American Preservation Efforts, 1820-1990." InMuseums and Communities : The Politics of Public Culture, ed. Ivan Karp, Christine Mullen Kreamer and Steven D Lavine, 506-611. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992.
Rule, Sheila. "Museum as Cultural Anchor: The Studio Museum at 25." New York Times, 23 Nov 1993, C l3, C20.
Saltz, Jerry. "Ill Will and Desire." Flash Art 29, no. 191 (1996): 82-86.
Shaw, Gwendolyn DuBois. Seeing the Unspeakable : The Art of Kara Walker. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.
______. Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker. London: Duke University Press, 2004.
Trotman, Krishan. "Kara Walker Electrifies the Studio Museum in Harlem." New York Amsterdam News 94, no. 30 (2003): 17.
Vergne, Philippe. "Kara Walker." In Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole: Walker Art Center Collections, ed. Joan Rothfuss and Elizabeth Carpenter, 564-567. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2005.
Wallace, Michelle. "The Enigma of the Negress Kara Walker." In Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress, ed. Ian Berry, Darby English, Vivian Patterson and Mark Reinhardt, 175-179. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003.
Willis, Deborah, and Carla Williams. "The Cultural Body." In The Black Female Body, a Photographic History, 83-137. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.