Shadowplay

"And yet, as poet Kevin Young observes in the show's catalog, 'Walker is less an artist of history … than a historian of fantasy.' Her imagery is voluptuous and shameful; it embarrasses and offends. And it refuses to let anyone—black or white—off the hook."

Mia Fineman in Slate narrates a slide show of silhouettes by artist Kara Walker from an overview at the Whitney Museum.


"Early on, Walker found the holy grail of the contemporary art lover, an instantly recognizable amalgamation of technique and content not previously associated with any other artist--the aesthetic equivalent of what marketing gurus call a unique selling proposition. What struck the eye from the first were Walker's grand-scale figurative compositions made with cut-out black silhouettes affixed directly to the wall, and the neat way this folksy, traditional and domestic technique, expanded to the scale of a public mural and executed with a breathtaking precision and elegance, meshed with the subject matter: the violence of American black slavery recast as a perverse sexual fantasy."

And Barry Schwabsky reviews Walker in The Nation.