Race

Kara Walker is a contemporary African American artist whose artwork focuses mainly on race, identity, and the struggle for power. Her move from California to Georgia at a young age had a huge influence on her work, because she became more aware of her “blackness” while living in the South. She is most famous for cutting out enormous silhouettes of people from black paper and mounting them on walls. In these works, Walker exaggerates stereotypical black characteristics, and the figures are dressed in costumes from the antebellum period (Biography). Her work has been highly criticized by all races, but she continues to support and depict the notion “that American identity, black as well as white, is rooted in finding pleasure in racist brutality” (Arnason and Mansfield 739).


Walker fights the idea of the “mythologically constructed ‘straight, white, male’—the preeminent protector of culture” by distorting history and depicting slaves dressed in elaborate antebellum gowns (Kocur and Leung 190). She suggests that these pseudo historical works are a symbol of inaccuracies in the actual history of African Americans (History). Walker’s exaggerated features and depictions of “pikaninnies and sambos” prove that viewers who identify these figures as African American are succumbing to the stereotypes created by white people (Arnason and Mansfield 739). She further suggests that race is not only a problem for black people, because stereotypical identities of all races still exist. There will be a struggle until stereotypes can be forgotten, and like Adrian Piper stated in our reading, “It’s our problem to solve” (Kocur and Leung 186).


Arnason, H.H., and Elizabeth C. Mansfield. Histoyr of Modern Art. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2010. 739. Print.

Kocur, Zoya, and Simon Leung. Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. 1st ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2005. 186-190. Print.

"The Art of Kara Walker: Biography." Walker Art Center. 2007. Walker Art Center, Web. 3 Feb 2010.http://learn.walkerart.org/karawalker/Main/Biography .

"The Art of Kara Walker: History Collusion of Fact and Fiction." Walker Art Center. 2007. Walker Art Center, Web. 3 Feb 2010. http://learn.walkerart.org/karawalker/Main/HistoryCollusionOfFactandFiction.