Emancipating the Past: Kara Walker’s Tales of Slavery and Power

Emerging in New York in the mid-1990s, Kara Walker has become one of the most successful and controversial artists working today.  Exploring the painful history of American race relations through elegant and unnerving silhouettes, Walker’s work challenges us to access buried emotions about our nation’s past.  In her hands, the medium of silhouette becomes a tool for examining the traumatic psychological legacy of slavery.  The exhibition brings together Walker’s work in a variety of mediums, from large-scale printmaking to metal sculpture, shadow puppetry, and film.

Organized by Jessi DiTillio, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene, and made possible by Jordan D. Schnitzer and his Family Foundation.

Image: Kara Walker, The Emancipation Approximation (Scene #18), edition 7/20, 1999-2000, screenprint, 44” x 34”, Collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation.