Kara Walker’s War on Racism: Mining (Mis)Representations of Blackness

Abstract

Do the silhouettes of Kara Walker, an art world star, still need an introduction?¹ Exhibited worldwide over almost two decades now, Walker’s black cutouts have been the subjects of a prolific body of exegesis. Hardly any new publication on blackness in the United States seems to be released without mentioning her.² Walker’s cutouts, seen as her signature style, to the point where she is now regarded as an “Old Master,”—or should we say, “Old Mistress”—in silhouettes, are the main focus of critics and commentators’ attention. One of Walker’s début pieces, The End of Uncle Tom and the Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven (1995, Jeffrey Deitch collection, New York; figure 5.1), remains, up to now, one of her most-analyzed works, be it within the academic fields of art history, English, or gender studies.³ When Walker started out with the silhouette in the early 1990s, it was an obscure medium that had all but fallen into oblivion, and she brought it back to life. In contemporary visual culture, the impact of Walker’s silhouettes may be identified in commercial revampings of the silhouette in advertising, for instance. Within the realm of contemporary art, Walker’s practice has participated in the establishment of the paper cutout as a full-fledged artistic medium.⁴