Kara Walker: "A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby" | Art21 "Extended Play"
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- Опубликовано: 14 янв 2025
- Episode #204: This episode provides an in-depth look at the creation of Kara Walker's monumental public project, "A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby" (2014), at the Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn, NY. Seated in her Manhattan studio, Walker explains how the molasses-covered space, along with her extensive research into the history of sugar, inspired her to create a colossal sugar-coated sphinx, as well as a series of life-sized, sugar and resin boy figurines. A team of artists and fabricators are shown constructing and coating the sphinx, which, as Walker says, gains its power by "upsetting expectations, one after the other." Commissioned by Creative Time, "A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby" is the first large-scale public project by Walker who is best known for her cut paper silhouette installations, drawings, and watercolors. "A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby" was on view until July 6, 2014. Thereafter, the factory is scheduled to be demolished to make way for condominiums.
Kara Walker explores the raw intersection of race, gender, and sexuality in her work, crafting vivid psychological narratives from a contemporary perspective on historical conditions. Over the past two decades, Walker has unleashed the traditionally Victorian medium of the silhouette onto the walls of the gallery, creating immersive installations that envelop the viewer. Walker's multi-media work-which includes drawing, watercolor, video, and sculpture-often reconsider grotesque caricatures, probing their persistence in popular culture and reclaiming their subjugating power to alternative ends.
Learn more about the artist at:
art21.org/arti...
CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interviewer: Ian Forster. Camera: Ian Forster, Rafael Salazar & Ava Wiland. Sound: Nicole J. Caruth, Wesley Miller & Ava Wiland. Editor: Morgan Riles. Music: Pinch Music. Artwork Courtesy: Kara Walker & Creative Time. Special Thanks: Sikkema Jenkins & Co. Theme Music: Peter Foley.
"Exclusive" is supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; 21c Museum Hotel, and by individual contributors.
Kara Walker, "A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby" at Creative Time
creativetime.or...
#KaraWalker #Art21 #Art21ExtendedPlay
I was fortunate to be able to see this exhibit! It was such a unique and powerful experience to be there. Thank you Kara Walker!
Kara Walker's work is fantastic.
I like this piece of artwork, it is always important to look back.
Saw this exhibit three times! Cool seeing the statues change over time.
Ms. Walker's art is unlike anything that I have witnessed. For me, her silhouette cutouts are my favorites.
as an art history student, i am in awe of her ability to create art in such a concise way. every piece conveys all the complexities of race, gender, culture, and our psychological understanding of them in SUCH powerful ways... a living legend
I'm curious: what if a white woman had created this? Still concise and complex with understanding?
@@atheistfromaustria I can't speak for them, but for me, yes it would be. The idea is that it's supposed to make you think of the connection between black people and sugar, and the nuances and struggles therein. There was more emotion to it because the figure depicted was the same ethnicity and sex as the person who designed it, but that doesn't change what it says.
Man... I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to go behind this statue and, well... hehehhe... look up... :)
What the fuck is wrong with you dude? Get some help... This piece ISN'T for masturbation...
Very powerful, wished I could have been there in person. Kara Walker is a treasure!
Kara Walker your work is brilliant, thank you!
Thank you, Kara Walker. You are very gifted.
This piece is AWEsome. When was the last time someone made a legitimate piece of sculpture/art like this?? She is a treasure.
mythnow sarcasm noted
wow..thank you for your thought provoking vision with this amazing, breathtaking art. I wish I had seen it in person.
Boston actually had a molasses flood. It sounds funny, but was a serious matter. Twenty-one people died, and it could have been avoided if not for greed and a callous lack of concern for the affected neighborhood. For more info, check out the book “Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919” by Stephen Puleo.
Reading comments of white people saying her facial features are a caricature are insulting. Apparently presenting Afrocentric features as they are in all their glory is what y’all consider laughable or impossible. Comparing her to a gargoyle, a mammy, Aunt Jemima, or even a real black woman yet still see no issue calling her features a caricature. I don’t laugh when I see this sculpture. I see features proudly displayed. What is there to mock? Where is exaggeration for the purpose of laughter to you? Is the mere existence of uncensored Afrocentric features funny?
Kara Walker’s work is offensive to a lot of people, black and white because it is uncensored, it is explicit, it is expressive and it commands your attention. This piece does not shy away from the history of a lot of black women, the roles many of us were forced to take on back then and even in present day. Walker doesn’t just consider what she’s making the piece out of, which is sugar for Christ’s sake, but also, the location, the very SMELL of the piece, to tell a story and express a reality that many would like to turn away from. She will not LET you turn away and try to forget. You look the other way and you still have the overwhelming smell of sugar, reminding you of it’s presence regardless if you want to acknowledge it or not. I chuckle at the title, A Subtlety, in its irony. This piece, like black women, will always be a presence in your life and just like it has influenced your very senses, black women have influenced so much of this country’s history as well as its culture. Much love Kara Walker, may the gross comments on your work not puncture your artistic endeavors.
I am not white and I see a racial caricature...i guess one has to be intellectually woke and evolved to be moved by such pretentious art
It’s a Mammy, Pearl Milling got rebranded from Aunt Jemimah BECAUSE of the Mammy stereotype
@@igloozoo3771 check out Tamara de Lempicka or Pablo Picasso's work for caricature - artists do it all the time
What a powerful installation, including location. I would've loved to see it in person
Kara Walker changed my life. Most important American artist of the last 20 years.
+mediiskit *definitely *then
This is why democracy doesn’t work
I saw Kara Walker's silhouettes today and was knocked out by them.
Domino sugar refinery was responsible for making the public think that brown sugar was inferior to white sugar, though studies show that brown sugar makes foods softer and has less caloric content and is more environmentally friendly when making. But pushing white refined sugar was a way to say white is better than brown. The refining/whitening of raw brown natural sugar was definitely rooted in racism. Sad but true.
I'm sure it was, wait...no it wasn't ! Gotta love being the victim blaming ALL white people for something that happened over 100 years ago...that's why nobody takes you seriously !
I love that she took the chance to work outside her preferred medium and comfort zone.
Now that's art. 💯
I love her work.
Mind-blowing!!
Her Art is amazing!
Incredible! Sharing.
Thank you, Kara Walker.
Brilliant! Bravo!
can people stop posting cringey comments about how threatened they feel by black people, and just appreciate this art for what it is? creative and monumental. love it, and love the artist's energy when creating it too.
enjoy your soy milk!
@Ryan Vetter that was all explained in the video. I'm an artist, I think I can tell when something is genuine.
I ididn't know that you can sculpture with sugar that must've been take an hour to do that and how did she dried the sugar this is incredible and where is that place I really love to go to that place and see her amazing sculpture ❣.
Despite the hour wait, one of the most memorable exhibits in a long time.
Very strong pungent smell of stale sweet dust in the air.
Thank you bc I wanted to know what it smelled like
Brilliant. Breath taking.
What was the iconography behind making a giant sphinx? I loved all of the other sculptures she created but the sphinx just threw me off.
so, so amazing
this work is sweet .
isn't using that huge amount of sugar to create these pieces of art, which are supposed to criticize the slavery that goes into the agriculture of sugarcane, in itself contribute to more injustice?
GOOD POINT.
Kind of. That's part of the problem; the issue is system deep. You cannot use material means to protest without contributing in some way to those things you are protesting. To do any of the things you must to survive at all in this system, nevermind taking extra steps like protesting it, you cannot help but contribute to the injustice. If it were smaller, it wouldn't be so bold, wouldn't make such a point. Maybe you could make it a foot smaller, two feet, five feet, but eventually it will lose impact. This is art. To argue the semantics about what expenses could have been spared for the sake of the expression is to miss the point.
Came here to say that too. Not to mention all the food waste from that as well. I don't think any point she could have made is worth the damage she caused. It was a good idea though.
deep!
7:33 Fred Tomaselli
recommended
Can I get a description on what this video is about?
AWESOME!! FREEDOM FOR THE AFRICAN THAT DIED IN THAT PLANTATION FACTORY!!
WOW!
priceless
The great boston molasses flood
I don’t see a single black person, but the person that made that statue 😂 fr
Aunt Jemima?
Nope. That’s Mammy from Gone With The Wind.
Nope there’s a woman named HottenTot Venus...this is dedicated to her
Peace!! and thank you for the appropriate song .....,BUT very little indentured.. but many generations of African were ENSLAVED, FORCED LABOUR, tortured,under the lash...The statues represent the spirits of the Black children who were worked to death under exploitive slavery conditions.Sugar= rum ,shipped to England ,shipped rum to Africa I The TRANS ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE/ MAAFA=AFRICAN HOLOCAUST,... sugar and the body of the AFRICAN WOMEN WHOSE WOMBS were legal binding insured: BREEDING COMODITY , valued ,and priced appendage that generated more enslaved and bondaged /captive children to be sold and black body that was solded to produced more chattel,.... the sphinx the AFRICAN WOMEN AS THE SACRED FEMININE / GODDESS that vulva the sacred Lingi and the source of life.. also the sister is saying ' this place of torture and murder ...I survived and you can kiss my a**!!
halima candy ... I recognize what you are trying express.
Work on your spelling and grammatical content.
It will strengthen your presentation.
Yeah, Michelangelo, Renoir, Hiroshige, i must give up those for that 🐎💩.
you don't have to. just go to another museum. that aside, I don't like it either.
I also have to add here Pieter Bruegel!
white people be like (their white guilt kicks in) at 7:44
no one asked
haha yea but it wasn't about you, mate. we know you don't have white guilt. it's ok
haha nah i don't. thanks tho. bye
sure thing
um... why are you so obsessed with me
It’s offensive to consider this horrid rubbish “art”.
@Bullets in Bacon Grease no. We built this country. Point blank period
mothers pecan pie
karo syrup jodys guy
timothy brechts why
Theater of absurd
Remove your absurd self off this site.
the kiddies get to see the the nude sphinx :l
AYO. HOL UP. SO YOU BE SAYIN'. WE UHHM. WE WUZ KANGZ?
This is so absolutely degenerate and hypocritical.
how is this hypocritical?
she needs some conceptual improvements
Never cook again
What the fuck
I'm sorry, but no. Not very tasteful
It’s total garbage and we all know it. It’s laughable amateurishness is hilarious.
Gotta disagree. You are objectively wrong; we do not all know it. You might not be the only one that thinks that, but the whole world is not with you. It is amatuerish, she literally says she's never made anything like it or within this strange medium before. But the techincal failings don't take away from what it was supposed to achieve in the first place; making one think about black people's connection to sugar, the history and violence therein. It is simple, but does what it's meant to. But you'd rather talk about the messenger than the message?
"We all know it" is so trumpian. Who is "we"?
was this artist working with sugar or that other white substance ppl snort. this is very tasteless. its trash... like what was she thinking? who gave this a green light