Art's Spatiality with Kara Walker

Artist Kara Walker incorporates space in her explorations of identity, race, gender, and violence. Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred b’tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart (1994) and A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby (2014) both impact and are impacted by historical narratives, inviting spectators to be audience members. The first piece is a wall art installation of silhouettes cut from black paper. In addition to the title, these eighteenth-century caricatures allude to Mitchell’s (1936) Gone with the Wind, a literary work that impacted Walker. She was captivated by the novel but frustrated by the heroine’s limited perspective; Scarlett O’Hara’s lens illuminates nuances that have resounding implications for positionality Walker later suggests ("A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby", 2014). Thus, her installation is her subsequent personal tension as an African American reader, “wanting to be the heroine and wanting kill the heroine at the same time” ("A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby", 2014). This visual storytelling utilizes projectors to augment the white walls and black figures into a cyclorama, which is a panoramic image often associated with depictions of Civil War battles. Walker’s (1994) piece plays with depth and perception, while also acting as an illusion. The silhouettes themselves could simply suggest the past, yet also embody avoidance; one doesn’t look directly at the subject—being the figure—which notates a narrative that is often silenced.

Ten years later, the sphinx and Mammy archetype transform into a gigantic sugar sculpture. A Subtlety, or theMarvelous Sugar Baby (2014) notates power dynamics itself, let alone being within a former Domino Sugar Factory. A “subtlety” was a miniature sugar sculpture depicting royalty and for royal consumption. Incorporating Mammy within a different context challenges its associated connotations of servitude; her position isn’t one of subjection or abuse, but rather withholding. Additionally, she’s surrounded by thirteen children formed from molasses. This juxtaposition of a desired commodity—sugar—and its unwanted, lingering bi-product—molasses—shows exploitation and marginalization; slaves often harvested sugar for the white and wealthy. However, shaping bodies from both sugar and molasses highlights slaves as individuals, materializing their experience.

Thus, while they explore power dynamics, Walker’s artworks resonate with Mitchell’s “representations of space” and “representational space” (1995). The Domino Sugar Factory—once a place of industry, capital, and order—became disordered by molasses sticking to its walls but then reclaimed by Walker, who sought visibility for a population. While I’m sure she’d like individuals to view her work, A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby (2014) sought to legitimize a narrative that often is overshadowed by Protestant colonists. In her interview with Art 21, Walker states, “What ‘black’ stands for in White America, what ‘white’ stands for in Black America are all loaded with our deepest psychological perversions, and fears, and longings” (2014). Ultimately, Walker’s pieces notate space’s tendency to be palpable yet abstract, manipulating social and cultural codes to offer different meanings (Hamdan-Saliba & Fenster, 2012)

References

"A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby". (2014, May 23). Retrieved from Art 21: https://art21.org/watch/extended-play/kara-walker-a-subtlety-or-the-marvelous-sugar-baby-short/

Contemporary Art from the Collection- Kara Walker. (2010-2011). Retrieved from The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/110565?

Kara Walker. (2019). Retrieved from Walker Art Center: https://walkerart.org/collections/artists/kara-walker

Hamdan-Saliba, H. and Fenster, T. (2012). "Tactics and Strategies of Power: the Construction of Spaces of Belonging for Palestinian Women in Jaffa-Tel Aviv." Women's Studies International Forum 35: 203-213.

Mitchell, D. (1995). "The End of Public Space?: People's Park, Definition of the Public, and Democracy. Annuals of the Association of American Geographers 85:108-133.