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A Subtlety Kaa Walker Analysis

Decent Essays

1. Kara Walker is an African American artist who is well known for her contemporary work. As with most contemporary works, her paintings, performances, prints, and other works delve in social issues and politics, as she explores race, gender, and identity in her works. She is best known for her silhouette works, where she depicts and event or story, yet the entire work is in shadow. While this was her main style, she also worked with sculptures, her most famous one being A Subtlety, a monstrous set of sculptures and structures depicting violence and oppression of races and social classes. 2. This work was commissioned by Creative Time, a non-profit, arts organization. This groups goal was to encourage creative art in the United States, by merging art with everyday aspects of life. For example, they aided with New York’s infrastructure reconstruction, and encourages artworks to be erected in parks and other public structures in the city. Walker’s work was one of these works, as it was erected in an old sugar mill/factory in New York City. The irony of a work about oppressed sugar workers being made in a former sugar factory was intended by the artist. 3. This art was constructed and completed in 2014. A show for this art’s display was open for roughly three months (May-July). The United States has become a modern industrial powerhouse, where the values and rights of the workers are heavily respected. However, this does not mean that there is no worker exploitation around

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