Powerful stuff from the very talented Ms. Walker, whose work has intrigued me for a very long time. She's daring and I love that.
I wish I loved this installation more. Important and great and interesting themes, but physically it's so ugly and cruddy-looking. It looks made out of cardboard, and reading about the environmental concerns in its construction, I'm not that far off. The ideas behind this are excellent, but the execution is really shoddy-looking.
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Perhaps just a coincidence, but K West is also the sign one of Britain's better sons was standing under (amongst piles of garbage) on the cover of "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust" album. Kara Walker is always incredibly focused in her commentary without being didactic or dogmatic. This is why, as an artist, I am always very interested in what she comes up with next. This is a great piece, thank you, Kara.
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@Mary well spotted!
Very well done. She pulled off a great one. Love that wig girl!
Now I think the Tate Mod should do something really reactionary, really conservative. Just for a change of pace.
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This artist makes unforgettable physical commentary about historical sales pitches. After reading the NYT article about Sugar Baby I felt shocked by my own ignorance about my own cultural, esthetic and yes physiological "brainwashing"
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Slavery did not begin in America in 1619. It began much earlier when the Spaniards brought some slaves to the New World (America) and enslaved Native Americans.
Before that some Native American tribes made slaves of other tribes, and Africans in Africa enslaved many of their fellow blacks and later sold them into the slave trade that served the Middle East, Europe and America.
Yes, America had slaves, but slavery in the North ended around 1804, and in the South ended in 1865, after hundreds of thousands of white and black Northern soldiers gave their lives to end slavery in the US.
So, no, slavery in America did not begin in 1619, 150 years before the US declared independence from Britain. The fact that Ms. Walker ignores all the pertinent prior history of slavery totally distorts the subject, and places herself and the NYT clearly in the role of grinding an axe rather than trying to bring insight and clarity to a complex and vexing subject.
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@Mon Ray
Slavery ended in Alabama in 1928 when the convict lease system was abolished.
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@Mon Ray
Actually the slave trade between East Africa and central) southern India is a 1,500 year project. In the Americas we should look early to the Portuguese in northeastern Brazil (Bahia de Todos is Santos), and a little later in Rio de Janeiro (Valongo wharf), in the 16th century.
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@Mon Ray
The work isn't about the entire history of slavery. As the article plainly states, she was inspired by a sculpture in London celebrating the Victorian Age, and it's representative of how the Golden Triangle contributed to the wealth of the British Empire. Your inability to grasp that doesn't, in the least, mean that this is "clearly in the role of grinding an axe". And there is nothing "vexing" about the subject of slavery and the Golden Triangle. It was a moral abomination.
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Kara Walker is one of our best, living artists. She manages to bring works of art that can challenge, critique, bring forth thought. But her work is also infused with wit and a wonderful, playful hand. I can look at her work on a purely formal level as well as a work of conceptuality.
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Ms. Walker's Sugar Baby was a revelation. I wish I could see her current installations. If the British believe for one second they didn't profit from slavery because they outlawed it first this exhibit should help with their enlightenment. And the Emmett Till tragedy should be kept in the popular consciousness for decades to come - the history of slavery, reconstruction & Jim Crow are important and vital necessities in keeping Americans and the world as a whole informed on where we came from. Our history needn't hurt us - it should help us. Ms. Walker is a national treasure. I feel so fortunate to have seen her work in person.
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This is so great! Virtually all the slaveholders of America before 1783 were Englishmen. Englishmen. All the slaves shipped to the American South were only 4.5% of the total number sent to the Western Hemisphere. 55% went to the sugar islands of the Caribbean, which were overwhelmingly British. (The other 40.5% went to Brazil alone, by far the greatest "slave state" in human history, as any visitor can observe today, since Brazil is 80% "people of color" descended from slaves.) Almost all of pre-1783 Southern American guilt over slaves was British, a small part of Britain's majority responsibility for the greatest evil in human history, an evil dwarfing the Holocaust: the Atlantic slave trade. Germany has done a superb job of memorializing its Holocaust guilt. Where are the London museums focused on British slave guilt? Welcome to London, Kara!!
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See Kara Walker's work does start a conversation as evidenced by the comments. But we must look beyond content and view her work as creative art in and of itself.
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@amp Nah, no we don't. We can walk and chew gum: history lesson and art.
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Kara Walker's art has been the sharpest work coming out of this country for many years now. Razor-sharp.
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Commentary is not art. It is derivative reaction, unable to stand on its own merits.
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@RL To suggest Ms. Walker is not a top rate artist is laughable. It can more than stand on its own merits. undefined be undefended.
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Good luck, Ms. Walker. I think you'll have a better chance than some.
The words 'American woman' are often used pejoratively in Britain...but most Brits know the history of the slave trade. That may preserve Ms. Walker from the usual...
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Somewhere along the line from 1776 to now, we dropped our disgust with British imperialism, and now fawn on the elegance and wit of its practitioners and their descendants.
Too bad. Our former hostility was on the side of the angels, a rare praiseworthy aspect of our history.
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Ironic that this is in the Tate Modern.The Tate family fortune was built on sugar !
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This is all so juvenile but I guess that what passes for serious discourse nowadays. Anger, constant outrage and mockery suffice since there is no need for discussion and respect for other points of view.
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@Paul What would those other points of view be? An exhibit from the perspective of a slave ship owner? It's been done.
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One small point: The caption of the "K. West" detail photo notes that this might be a jab at Kanye West. And so it might be. But for me, the way the figure is posed on a foundering boat in a sea of sharks is far more reminiscent of Winslow Homer's painting 'The Gulf Stream.'
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@RMindependent
As noted in the photo caption ....
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If this is a result of current museum/gallery focus on'inclusivity'
then I would consider it a roaring success. Dross falls away as artists like Kehinde Whiley, by his extraodinary 'Rumours of War', and Walker change our view of the world.
Bravo!
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Let us not forget that slavery still exists in the modern world. There have been numerous reporting of servants in domestic slavery, women enslaved for the 'pleasure' of men and on and on we go.
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I love Kara Walker's work, for her willingness to tell the truth in a way that catches the viewer off guard. It makes the message that much more powerful.
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I was taught Kara Walker's work in the contemporary section of an intro art history course in college and have followed her career with interest ever since. Once again, her work floors me. What a powerful artist.
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Being an artist, one sees this social statement appended to an art object, at this point, all too often. After a while the strategy becomes stale and predictable. Even boring... but I am sure for the public audience it creates some shock. But, they say, the work is to jumpstart “conversation”. Oh please... read a book, there will be far more to learn.
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@Billy Evans
Social statements are never "appended" to Walker's work; they are the very stuff of it -- the animating force and the bones.
Her art never fails to get me in the gut.
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@Billy Evans
I understand your point, but have you actually experienced Walker’s work in person?
It’s absolutely phenomenal on so many levels - aesthetic, sociopolitical, and spiritual.
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@Billy Evans What's wrong with "jumpstarting conversation"? Seems to me that it would spark interest in the public and perhaps lead to more book-reading.
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Thank you, Kara Walker, for your vision and your dedication to the truth of enslavement. Your work inspires reflection and conversations - not easy but essential.
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@Elizabeth Sommers
May I ask, “More reflection or conversation” than the real actual events that one can see or read about? I suggest that if one really wanted change they would get onto the real frontlines and do the work. This type of artwork is for the guilty of conscience on one side or for the faux victims on the other...in the main. Kinda funny this artist is now the rich elite person crying fowl. Going to the fancy galas at the museum must create some dissonance for this artist... or maybe it doesn’t.
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@Billy Evans
No. Just because her work is reaching the elites is no reason to call her out. She is doing the “real” work by using her gifts to reframe history. For the general public, students, as well as museum attendees, she is creating a meaningful and necessary encounter.
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@Billy Evans Billy, why so snarky about Kara Walker? Should there be only one kind of art? “Faux victims”—you mean victims of slavery? Maybe you need to be engaged in some of the conversations Walker’s work promotes. Or maybe you should give it a pass and sit this one out since you don’t get it.
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How...shocking! And original!
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I think it is quite disingenuous of Ms. Walker to claim that this artwork is not about slavery—of course it is.
It is, however, appropriate to display in Britain an exhibit on slavery because it was the British (and other abettors) who in 1619 brought slavery to the British colonies that 157 years later became the United States.
Which raises the question of how much Britain will owe to black Americans if reparations ever become a thing.
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@Mon Ray
I beg to differ, Mon Ray.
Ms. Walker never claims that this particular work is not about slavery. Indeed, she underscores the fact that it IS by dedicating 'Fons Americanus' as 'A Gift and Talisman' to 'the Citizens of the Old World,' oppressor and oppressed alike, a platform that ties the horrors of the past (the origins of human trafficking) with the promise of the present - - a place from which catharsis and healing may actually take place.
Moreover, your comment about reparations seems ill-placed, at best!
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@Robert J. Wlkinson Please read the article carefully: Ms. Walker is quoted by the author as saying: “It does drive me a little bit crazy when I see references to my work that say ‘slavery in America.'"
The author goes on to suggest that Ms. Walker's monument evokes or refers to Emmett Till and Kanye West, who are American--not British. While many British viewers may have some idea who Kanye West is, it is not likely they will get the reference to Emmett Till.
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@Robert J. Wlkinson
The entire point of this "artist" is to take an obvious atrocity...make it even more grotesque...and then demand reparations...plus damages for emotional distress. This isn't art...it's just a commom legal tactic...
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Well, I guess that, if you don’t have the talent, skill or imagination to create an original artwork yourself, you can always destroy someone else’s.
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@Nils Wetterlind
Huh? Most (all?) great art is in dialogue with what came before. For today's viewer, Ms Walker's work is certainly more interesting than the Victoria Memorial.
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That’s rather nonsense, Nils. Satirical mockery has been a hallmark of great art for a very long time. Have you seen the Bernini fountain at the Piazza Navona? Besides, turning imperial bombast on its head is a worthy goal in and of itself.
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I am always surprised by the hostile comments that tend to pop up on articles about contemporary art. Why do you think she “destroyed” another artwork ? The last time I checked, the Victoria monument is still there. She took the form of a kitschy, bombastic public monument and made it something else. As is always the case with Kara Walker, she shows great mastery over her materials. She also confronted the always difficult physical conditions of the Turbine Hall. Rather than showing a lack of “originality”, she exhibited her usual high intelligence.
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I recently have embarked on a journey of learning not to be white and am wakening to truths previously unknowable to me. Thank you, Ms. Walker, for allowing me to participate in this lively discussion. Your art has collapsed time and accelerated my journey.
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@mmck Learning not to be white?? It doesn't matter how progressive you are, if a non-white takes offence at something you do or say, by definition these days you are in the wrong.
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Jeff, as context for my comment, I am early on in reading TaNehisi Coates' Between The World and Me. I never before realized the definition of white that he uses and find it worth exploring.
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It is not about learning not to be white. It is about acknowledging the long history of racial stigmatism imposed by white Europeans, and working to undo it going forward. No one has ever been more eloquent on the subject than James Baldwin. In particular, I recommend viewing his debate with William F. Buckley which is readily available online.
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