The art of American artist Kara Walker, whose giant sugar sphinx became a surprise tourist draw last summer in New York, is not for the faint-hearted. But then, dealing with the black American experience, as Walker does, leaves little space for wry humour or fancy tickling.
In ‘Go to Hell or Atlanta, Whichever Comes First’, her first show at London’s Victoria Miro gallery, Walker has created a number of new site specific works, retelling America’s nation-making with the most brutalising of race and gender relations as its modus operandi. There are no happy whistling cowboys here.
Walker’s best known medium is the cut paper silhouette and here, with The Jubilant Martyrs of Obsolescence and Ruin, she creates a large tableau across an entire wall of the upper gallery. There are rearing horses everywhere and the noise of terrible violence.
In the Four Idioms on Negro Art series, Walker channels primitivism, folk styles and Basquiat. Here, sex is violence and cocks are weapons. Love seems in short supply.
Taking up another wall is The Stone Mountain Dr Martin Luther King referred to in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963 (with monument to the Confederacy completed in 1972), a large photograph (with a long title), shot by the photographer and filmmaker Ari Marcopoulos. Stone Mountain sits in a park outside Atlanta – Walker grew up nearby – and is the world’s largest exposed granite monolith. It was also adopted as a spiritual home by the Ku Klux Klan and its surface has been scarred, blasted and carved into a bas-relief of the Confederate generals Robert E Lee, 'Stonewall Jackson' and president Jefferson Davis. Walker asks, ruling out Taliban-style removal, how to let such a thing stand. Will nature remove or obscure it – or history recast it?
Walker has created a number of new site specific works, retelling America’s nation-making with the most brutalising of race and gender relations as its modus operandi. Pictured: 40 Acres of Mules, 2015.
Negress Notes (from series), 2015.
Four Idioms on Negro Art #2 Graffiti, 2015.
In the Four Idioms on Negro Art series, Walker channels primitivism, folk styles and Basquiat.
Here, sex is violence and cocks are weapons. Love seems in short supply.
Walker’s best known medium is the cut paper silhouette and here, with The Jubilant Martyrs of Obsolescence and Ruin, 2015, she creates a large tableau across an entire wall of the upper gallery.
Taking up another wall is The Stone Mountain Dr Martin Luther King referred to in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963 (with monument to the Confederacy completed in 1972), a large photograph (with a long title), shot by the photographer and filmmaker Ari Marcopoulos.
INFORMATION
'Go to Hell or Atlanta, Whichever Comes First' is on view until 7 November
ADDRESS
Victoria Miro
16 Wharf Road
London, N1 7RW
-
Henry Zankov is the knitwear non-conformist making fashion’s favourite sweaters‘It's about pushing the boundaries of what knitwear can be,’ says Henry Zankov, whose exuberant New York-based label is already beloved by fashion insiders
-
Wild beauties: high jewellery dripping with dramaThe latest high jewellery collections are fantastic and flamboyant, drawing on a wealth of influences, from a Chopin composition and César Ritz to crocodiles and colour refraction
-
This Sydney house is a family's stylish seaside sanctuaryThis Sydney house is a young family's suburban dream come true thanks to Alexandra Kidd Interior Design and Rich Carr Architects
-
‘Darker, more sinister themes’: Paula Rego’s decade of self-discovery is the subject of a new London exhibitionPaula Rego’s ‘Letting Loose’, at Victoria Miro in London, considers the artist’s work from the 1980s
-
Alex Hartley’s eerie ode to Carlo Scarpa in VeniceAlex Hartley’s theatrical new installation ‘Closer than Before’ at Victoria Miro Venice is a haunting take on architectural destruction in Venice
-
Stan Douglas’ riff on alternative realities has us seeing doubleCoinciding with the announcement that the Vancouver artist will represent Canada in the 2021 Venice Biennale, his galleries in New York and London are staging a dual survey of his ambitious video installation Doppelgänger
-
Singling out the solo booths to see at Frieze Los AngelesOver 70 galleries will descend on Paramount Pictures Studio for the second edition of the West Coast art fair (14-16 February), anchored by an ambitious programme of special projects, film screenings, talks, and institutional collaborations
-
Doug Aitken’s epic art finds a home in a transformed auto repair shop in CaliforniaAs Doug Aitken features in the Wallpaper* 300, our guide to creative America, we revisit the surreal signage and sun-blasted landscapes of his portfolio of work, exclusively published in our November 2019 issue
-
Doug Aitken’s new show embraces real time
The American artist chimes in on the digital debate Coming soon: Wallpaper* collaborates on an exclusive project with Doug Aitken in our November 2019 issue, on sale 10 October
-
Artist Isaac Julien celebrates Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi on film -
John Kørner tackles the British sports of cycling, running and drinking
