Thursday, May 15, 2014
Kara Walker’s Sweet, Not So Subtle Revenge on Big Sugar
If you know the sexually and racially charged art of Kara Walker,
you know one thing—she’s not subtle. Walker’s artistic oeuvre to date
makes the title of her newest work, which is also her first large-scale
public project, all the funnier—A Subtlety. Subtitled the Marvelous Sugar Baby for the 35-foot-high, 75-foot-long, sugar sphinx “Mammy” (shown above) at the heart of the exhibition, Walker’s “subtlety” show both alludes to the absurdly elaborate desserts (also known as “entremets”) the nobility of the past would stage for their guests
as well as the subtle, unseen ways that the sugar we use to sweeten our
lives still comes as the cost of the embitterment of lives of those
living in third world countries. Adding to the symbolism, A Subtlety appears in the Domino Sugar Factory
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, which was once the largest sugar
refinery in the United States but which is now destined for the wrecking
ball. In what might be the most significant (if not the physically
largest) artistic statement of the year, Kara Walker’s A Subtlety enacts
sweet, not so subtle revenge on big sugar of yesterday and calls us to
examine the cruelty mixed into every sweet spoonful today. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Kara Walker’s Sweet, Not So Subtle Revenge on Big Sugar."
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