On Kara Walker: November 1

Spotlight: On Kara Walker
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue at 75th St

This special day of gallery tours, talks, and roundtable conversations brings expert eyes to an exhibition's artists, objects, and concerns.

1pm
"The Legacy of Dred Scott"
Amy Dru Stanley

Kara Walker's narratives mine and manipulate imagery of nineteenth-century plantation life in the American south. Tracing the historical shifts that accompanied the end of slavery to place Walker's work in context, American legal historian Amy Dru Stanley (From Bondage to Contract: Wage Labor, Marriage, and the Market in the Age of Slave Emancipation) considers individual liberties, African-American rights, and the definition of personhood in the wake of the 14th Amendment.

2pm
"Strategies of Representation"
Greg Tate

Art critic Greg Tate tours the Kara Walker exhibition to explore the multifaceted ways Walker subverts and invents visual tales of antebellum life.

3pm
"Art and the Colonial Mind"
Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby

Of the deep vein of racial stereotypes that her work taps, Kara Walker has said, "Blackness [is] a very loaded subject, a very loaded thing to be--all about forbidden passions and desires, and all about a history that's still living, very present." Art historian Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby takes a global view of art produced in a colonial frame of mind and addresses the relationship between latent racism and artistic content.

7pm
"The Shadows of Kara Walker's Art"
Darby English, Gwendolyn Dubois Shaw, and Simon Schama

Fellow artist Barbara Kruger has described the unflinching character of Walker's work by stating, "She revels in cruelty and laughter...Her silhouettes throw themselves against the wall and don't blink." Art historians Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw (Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker, 2004), Darby English (Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress, 2003) and Simon Schama (Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution, 2006) consider Walker's formal and aesthetic choices with an eye toward the legacy of American modernism and the specters of slavery that haunt her images.


Daytime events are free with Museum admission; however, advance registration is required to secure a seat. Tickets may be reserved by clicking on http://www.whitney.org/www/programs/eventInfo.jsp

Admission to evening roundtable: $8; senior citizens and students with valid ID $6. Tickets may be purchased by clicking: http://www.whitney.org/www/programs/eventInfo.jsp or by visiting the Museum Admissions Desk.

All programs are free for members. For Member reservations, please contact memberinfo@whitney.org. Inquiries: Email public_programs@whitney.org or call (212) 570-7715.

http://www.whitney.org/www/programs/eventcalendar.jsp?cat=1