ART CITIES:Berlin-Kara Walker

Kara Walker is among the most complex and prolific American artists of her generation. She has gained national and international recognition for her cut-paper silhouettes. At first, the figures in period costume seem to hearken back to an earlier, simpler time. That is, until we notice the horrifying content: nightmarish vignettes illustrating the history of the American South. Drawing from sources ranging from slave testimonials to historical novels, Kara Walker’s work features mammies, pickaninnies, sambos and other brutal stereotypes in a host of situations that are frequently violent and sexual in nature. Initial audiences condemned her work as obscenely offensive, and the art world was divided about what to do.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Sprüth Magers Gallery Archive

Kara Walker in her solo exhibition at Sprüth Magers Gallery in Berlin presents her film “National Archives Microfilm M999 Roll 34: Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands: Six Miles from Springfield on the Franklin Road” (2009), a 13 minute and 22 second video in collaboration with Alicia Hall and Jason Moran,  alongside a monumental 2013 installation entitled “THE SOVEREIGN CITIZENS SESQUICENTENNIAL CIVIL WAR CELEBRATION”. This film  was developed from Walker’s research into the U.S. National Archives on the War Department’s Bureau of Refugee’s, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands. Freedmen’s Bureau was created by Congress and initiated by President Lincoln in 1865 as a way to help former slaves transition into the status of American citizens, it didn’t last even 10 years. In 1868 the bureau had a record 901 employees, but by 1869 that number had plummeted to 158. President Johnson, whose term ended in 1869, had vetoed the program’s renewal in 1868, but Congress twice overrode him and so the bureau continued on. Yet by the end of June 1872, the bureau closed for good. The cold language of the original text, which is unfortunately not shown alongside the video, is translated into a shadow puppet-led dramatic upheaval that is at first as difficult to watch as many of Walker’s silhouettes are to view. Yet after awhile, the shock wears off and the violence within that historical period becomes flattened, and we are reminded that this type of attack isn’t unique or even unusual today, either. Set in Springfield, a small town just north of Nashville, Tennessee, a seemingly tranquil and idyllic scene of an African-American family quickly descends into a nightmarish vision of murder, rape, and arson, all fuelled by racial prejudice. “National Archives Microfilm M999 Roll 34: Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands: Six Miles from Springfield on the Franklin Road” alludes to the tradition of shadow theatre with glimpses of the human puppeteers visible throughout the film, in a playful attitude starkly contrasted with the subject and message of the film. A painful narrative with a handmade aesthetic, this colourful video is a departure from Walker’s monochrome works in both video and other media.  Where the film looks back at historic racial conflicts, “THE SOVEREIGN CITIZENS SESQUICENTENNIAL CIVIL WAR CELEBRATION” brings these tensions into the contemporary realm – though still within the lens of the Civil War. Part of a body of work inspired by Walker’s research into white supremacist movements and gun culture in contemporary America, this  work depicts an imaginary battle re-enactment scene from the anniversary celebrations that took place across America in 2011 to mark 150 years since the beginning of the Civil War. Inspired by the prevalent culture in some Southern states that actively forges the myth of the “Lost Cause of the Confederacy” and the associated mindset of white supremacy, this is an intricately cut-paper silhouette wall work on an enormous scale at approximately twenty metres in length and five in height.  Featuring silhouettes rendered in white against a deep grey background, Walker’s classically composed and inspired frieze adopts a tympanum-style triangular format, however the depicted silhouettes are crude and distinctly un-classical in style. Employing similarly explicit caricatures as in the film Walker uses this historically inspired yet rudimentary iconography to demonstrate how attitudes towards race are still a prevalent issue in the contemporary United States. Through characters drawn from American popular culture (both historical and contemporary) Kara Walker exposes the darker side of human behaviour, presenting a panoramic vista of clichés of America’s Deep South, moving clockwise from celebration morphing quickly into civil war-style racial violence and finally victory, or conquest. An acerbic nod to the nostalgia still felt by some for the antebellum, colonialist days, this work is exemplary of Walker’s typically candid and polemical dark comedy. Appearing whimsical, upon closer inspection there are disturbing and violent scenes of sexual harassment, fighting, torture, and even death, exploring themes of race, violence, sexuality, and gender.

Info: Sprüth Magers Gallery, Oranienburger Straße 18, Berlin, Duration: 11/3-4/4/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, http://spruethmagers.com