K
ara Walker’s depiction of macabre, tragicomic and vaudevillian dreamscapes invite deep scrutiny of critical race theory in this exceptional series of twenty-seven individual works, together titled Negress Notes. Executed between 1995 and 1996, just a year before Walker was awarded the Genius Grant by the MacArthur Foundation, the series stands as an unveiled window into an antebellum past. Exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1997, this set of vignettes has remained in the same collection since its initial execution. Drawing on the bourgeois, twee connotations of eighteenth-century cut-paper silhouette art, as well as patriotic, post-American Revolution history painting, Walker delineates her diverse cast of characters with eloquent expressivity. Ranging from graceful and elegant figures executed in washy ochres, to lewd scenes of sexual debauchery, Walker captures the imagination with her unique and imaginative visual vocabulary in each and every sheet. Rejecting any narrative continuity through her choice depiction of diverse scenes and characters, these fictional recollections of an aching past reflect the complex narratives of a burdensome era of American history.
“She renders figures and tells tales that have been suppressed, known but stricken from official history”
Kara Walker’s striking command of her craft compels us to look critically and attentively at these imagined scenes. Displaying her impeccable draftsmanship and her characteristic paper cut-outs, Negress Notes connotes an extraordinary range of sources, from folklore and autobiographical slave accounts, to American cartoon and naval paintings, all of which grant the authority of lived experience to these imaginary vignettes. Granting a window into the lives and narratives of enslaved peoples whose stories have traditionally been omitted from the history and art history books, the present work is an exceptional and emotional work. A commanding exercise into pressing themes relating to slavery and race relations in America, Negress Notes presents us with the unlived lives of fictional heroines, and carries the weight of unspoken recollections through the artist’s thoughtful scenes.
One of the most prominent artists of her generation, her work is housed in museums and public collections around the world including The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and The Tate Gallery, London, among other institutions; recent solo exhibitions include the Art Institute of Chicago; Camden Arts Center in London; and Metropolitan Arts Center (MAC) in Belfast.
