Kara Walker

8 Possible Beginnings or: The Creation of African-America, a Moving Picture by Kara E. Walker, 2005

Testimony: Narrative of a Negress Burdened by Good Intentions, 2004

Sprüth Magers und Sikkema Jenkins & Co

“If this is what is inside of me, then nobody is save.”

Kara Walker

The African-American artist Kara Walker (born in 1969 in Stockton, CA, USA/ lives and works in New York) is particularly known for her silhouettes. What first appears to be nostalgic shadow puppetry reveals itself on closer inspection as an uncanny examination of slavery and racism in North America. These images unflinchingly confront one’s own repressed fears and the traumas of slavery.

The silhouettes of Black and White bodies that collide in Walker’s work are characterised by exaggerated racialised and sexualised body stereotypes. The nightmarish aesthetic and phantom character of the video works Testimony and 8 Possible Beginnings challenge the viewer to bear witness to the disturbing events deeply etched into the collective memory of the African American population. By visually unleashing traumatic Black experiences, Walker stages a discourse of the unspeakable that references the horrific physical, psychological and sexual abuse left unspoken by former enslaved people.

By re-staging the violence of slavery as shadow play, Walker creates a space to process historical traumas – without ever offering a solution.