Analysis Of A Subtlety: The Marvelous Sugar Baby By Kara Walker

The settings and environments of the documentary Painted Babies position the viewer to respond to how beauty

Beyoncé Knowles’s Lemonade video album brings the words of Beyoncé into a visual media and shows the viewer a deeper meaning behind the album. After this video came out many articles came forward analyzing Lemonade. One article, in particular, that was intriguing is Bell Hooks “Moving Beyond Pain.” Hooks starts her article saying that the Lemonade video was created as a money-making, business strategy, but as the text continues the reader can conclude that “Moving Beyond Pain” is actually about African American women, and women in general, standing up for themselves.

Postmodern American artist’s Cindy Sherman and Kara Walker critique and question grand narratives of gender, race and class through their work and art practice. Cindy Sherman, born 1954, is well renowned for her conceptual portraits of female characters and personas that question the representation of women, gender identity and the true (or untrue) nature of photography (Hattenstone 2011). Kara Walker, born 1969, is known for her black silhouettes that dance across gallery walls and most recently her sugar sphinx, A Subtlety, address America’s racist slavery past (Berry 2003). These practitioners differ in their practical application of different mediums, Sherman constructs characters and scenes of stereotypical female personas in her photographs where she operates as the actress, director, wardrobe assistant, set designer and cameraman (Machester 2001). Simone Hatenstone, writer for The Guardian, states “She 's a Hitchcock heroine, a busty Monroe, an abuse victim, a terrified centrefold, a corpse, a Caravaggio, a Botticelli, a mutilated hermaphrodite sex doll, a man in a balaclava, a surgically-enhanced Hamptons type, a cowgirl, a desperate clown, and we 've barely started.” (Hattenstone 2011).Whereas, Walker creates paper silhouettes that are installed into a gallery space, as writer Ian Berry describes,

Lorraine O’Gradys’ unintentionally historic performances, seemingly elevate everyday life to the status of art. In her ‘exhibit’ at the Studio Museum, her work is represented through photographs, in ‘Art is…’. Thirty years ago, O’Grady presented ‘Art is’ in the form of a float in the African American Day Parade right here in Harlem. Performers pranced with empty frames, metaphorically capturing fleeting pictures of the people and places that surrounded the route of the parade. By doing so, the trappings of high art were brought out of the museum, into the street, which promotes a new way people might begin to recognize this new art form in the celebrations of every day life. The

The piece chosen was created by Kara Walker(1969-). The intensely large sculpture created at seventy-five feet long, thirty-five feet tall with the width is unknown sculpture is known as “A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby” This piece was created at closed down Domino Sugar factory. In addition to the usage of space, Walker also used a sugary paste donated by Domino Sugar to create the exterior layer of the sculpture. This piece was created similar to a replica of The Sphinx. While the shape and form of the “Marvelous Sugar Baby” is similar to The Sphinx, resting on its appendages, the sculptures are quite different. Unlike the Sphinx, Walker’s piece was created with the features of an African woman wearing a headband with the over dramatized and example of an over sexualized African woman’s body. She had choose to create this piece at this location because the building was less than standard. The structure was falling apart, molasses running down the walls. It was a horrid, yet an ideal place for the project in her eyes. The way the entire Domino structure was built provided for a cage of sorts, made of the beams holding up the place, surrounding the “Marvelous Sugar Baby”. She created this piece with the intention of speaking out against the difficulties people nowadays have when discussing the several hardships in the past that were brought upon these women: Slave trading for high quality items or services and sexualization of African women.

In her words, the controversy came a few weeks later, when “a pseudonymous photo blogger – a banker by day – discovered the work online and wrote that I should be ‘arrested and charged with child abuse’ for my techniques” [1]. While these sorts of claims often come from emotional origins, and the blogger was likely very concerned about the wellbeing of the children in Greenberg’s photos, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of child abuse and the accusation seems entirely unsubstantiated. On the phone with Paper Mag, Greenberg said “It was really hurtful and upsetting…People want to explain why the images make them feel something, and they assume that feeling is bad” [2]. To me, Greenberg seems to believe that critics felt the emotion in the image but were unable to tie the emotion to her political

One of the artworks from Kara Walker gained mass attention from viewers was “The Marvelous Sugar Baby or A Subtlety.” Walker’s powerful artwork piece of “The Marvelous Sugar Baby” is unearthly size that stands thirty-feet tall with exaggerated lips, nose, and body all covered in sugar. The masterpiece is to be best described as “Aunt Jemima” wrapped around her head is kerchiefed stereotyping as “mother.” The raw sugar canes symbolize cultivated dark history of the fields in the American South during the time of slavery. As the “The Marvelous Sugar Baby or A Subtlety” get whitened or refine before it reaches the table to be display. She utilizes the sugar industry to develop a sense of domino effect into America. For instance, sugar

A single photo can tell thousands of stories about people that have been silenced in the past or those who are still silenced today. This is the case for the photograph titled “Oppression” by Luke Moore. In such a simple picture, the author is giving voice to the women who have been mistreated, killed, raped and oppressed. This treatment against women is not new and has been implemented all over the world. Moore uses line, character, and color to appropriately demonstrate the fight women have against oppression and the responsibility society has on this oppressive system.

However, when Eliza recounts the story of her sexual assault later, it becomes clear that this graffiti is more than a joke; it is a form of symbolic violence against her. In fact, Eliza later tells Keith that she was sexually assaulted by her roommates the night that these notes were written on her door, and the men used the same markers to write on her art and her body. When Eliza’s roommates write on her drawings of the mutation and her body, they visually equate her with the disease, and the notes on the door mock her for her attempts at gaining authority over her mutation. Further, by drawing graffiti on Eliza’s body her roommates symbolically connect her to the door and the art, reducing Eliza to an object and refusing to recognize her humanity. This graffiti not only represents the symbolic violence of the male gaze or the physical violence of assault, but also a narrative violence that associates Eliza with objects. These notes do not recognize Eliza’s autonomy, but reduce her to a physical mutation and objectify her through her infection. By using this graffiti to equate Eliza with her illness, Burns draws attention to the objectification of women through the male gaze and how this symbolic violence can be used by men to justify physical violence as well.

The Open Casket painting made by Dana Schutz was one out of many different art pieces that were included in the Whitney Museum exhibition, which led to protests and controversies. Many people have found this portrait of Emmett Till disrespectful to his memory, and think that she’s using Emmett’s death as a way to make money. However, Schutz declared from the beginning, that her work wasn’t for sale. Other individuals believe that because Dana Schutz’s nationality is white, she doesn’t have the right to make a drawing of an African American. Instead of dividing artists by the color of their skin, people should utilize this artistic work as a way to engage in moral discussion as opposed to censorship or destruction of an artwork. It’s wrong for a person to say that a subject should be off-limits to some creators because of their race. Parker Bright, an artist who assisted the exhibition, stood in front of Dana Schutz's painting, and wore a t-shirt with a phrase that said “Black Death Spectacle.” Bright felt as if Schutz’s painting isn’t doing any justice, and that she doesn’t have the privilege to speak for African Americans. Moreover, a writer named Hannah Black wrote a letter to the Whitney exhibition curators demanding that the painting must be destroyed entirely. Furthermore, many media outlets received an email supposedly written by Dana Schutz requesting her portrait to be removed from the Whitney Museum, but it turned out to be

In the film Sugar Cane Alley, the journey of a young orphan boy is illustrated in the island of Martinique located right outside France in the 1930s. The protagonist, Jose, must reside with his grandmother who must do the jobs of poor black’s which includes washing clothes and working the sugar cane plantations for the rich white’s in town. Jose manages to see the significant social and economic gaps through the multiple characters around him even after the abolition of slavery. This gap is further supported through the visits to the capital, Fort-de-France, where Jose gains the opportunity to further his education through a scholarship offer. As this educational journey progresses, the audience is able to see comparisons to Van Onselen’s article, traditional African roles, and the social tensions experienced by the mulattos in a predominantly black and white population.

I fell in love with methodologies of art history. I felt empowered in that, through my own interpretations, I could attach words and meaning to objects. My study of art history reached a turning point when, in 2012, I took a class entitled Identity in a Post-Identity Art World: Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Trans/Nationality, 1990 to the Present. The course endowed me with another lens with which to examine works and, more importantly, shed light on representations of marginalized identities. As a result, I was introduced to the writings of Judith Butler and Simone de Beauvoir, both seminal theorists who inspired my own analyses. I enjoyed every minute of conducting research and forming arguments to support my claims. Ultimately I was interested in developing my understanding of issues in contemporary art further and sought to accomplish this by engaging with a larger

These questions are posed by what Young calls the “refugee art” of Kara Walker. As displaced subjects, the characters in Walker’s art take on a renewed sense of empowerment even while falling victim to and participating in acts of violence and humiliation. This paper seeks to explore issues of spectatorship and agency in the artwork of Kara Walker, taking into special consideration the critical essays of Kevin Young in the catalogue My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love (2007) and Dust Jackets for the Niggerati (2013) alongside a full-length study of the artist by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw titled Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker (2004). Both authors discuss the revisionary history of Walker’s visual narratives, yet formulate conclusions from two very different frames of reference. While Young examines Walker’s art from various cultural and historical perspectives, Shaw’s reading takes into account the personal experiences that influence Walker’s work.

No human being is completely free. Individuals’ values, ideas and identities are influenced, and to a certain degree, shaped by the cultures and societies they live in. However, by realizing identity, an individual can find a sense of independence, which subsequently leads towards self-actualization. In the novel “Like Water for Chocolate”, by Laura Esquivel, the protagonist, Tita, faces her journey from a young, submissive daughter to a strong, independent woman who is eventually able to achieve self-actualization, which is reflected in her non-traditional sense of identity and independence, and is something that not only ties in with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but I can relate myself to as well.

There is some disparity between the way critics and philosophers like Judith Butler view Cindy Sherman's work and the way that Cindy Sherman speaks of her photographs. It may be the disparity that exists between many modern artists, who often operate on an intuitive level, and the philosopher critics who comment upon them from a theoretical perspective or a pre-established framework. On one level, Cindy Sherman may only be playing "dress-up" (as she herself admits) in her famous History Portraits (1989-90) (Berne, 2003). On another level, however, her "dressing-up" may be indicative of a deeper problem in modern gender identity theory which is the problem of "becoming" woman (Butler, 1994) or, as Judith Butler sees it, the problem of performativity. In the History Portraits, Sherman may certainly be said to be "performing" and perhaps even attempting to "become" the male and female characters she represents in her work. Indeed, it is upon such a premise that philosopher critics and gender theorists find her work so engaging. This paper will examine Cindy Sherman and her History Portraits in relation to Judith Butler's gender theory, the portrayal of the self, and how gender identity has changed throughout the course of modern history. It will examine representations of womanhood from Romantic Idealism to Post-Modernism and will also