KARA WALKER

Erika Bello                                                                

Professor Harmon

HUA 101

6/10/16

Kara Walker

     Kara Walker is an African American contemporary artist and painter. Walker was born in Stockman, California in 1969. She graduated from Atlanta College of art around 1991. She earned a master of fine Arts degree at Rhode Island school of design. Walker explores race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity through her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes. According to Walker one of her artwork called ‘’Darkytown Rebellion’’ uses projectors to throw colored light onto the ceiling, walls, and floor. Some of Walker’s work is at the Museum of Modern Art. Also her works includes themes of African American racial identity. Walker subjects slavery, conflict or violence. According to Walker, she utilizes light projectors to cast viewers’ own shadows into her silhouetted narratives to create a deep experience. The silhouette is meaningful to walker’s form because it’s a metaphor for stereotype. The silhouette allows Walker to play tricks with the eye. Walker's artwork is about racism in the present and economic inequalities. While Walker's work is based on traditions of storytelling, she combines fact and fiction to complete the picture. Some of Walker’s influences include artist Andy Warhol, Otto Dix and Adrian Piper also some movement that influenced her was pop art, conceptual art and surrealism. Walker's art is heavily influenced by growing up as an African American in the South, where she struggled with the relationship between personal and political identities. One of Walker’s motives was to investigate interracial desire. In addition she studied "myths about blackness. Walker’s story is a result of her African American experience. Walker's elegant lines of her silhouettes, create an interesting tension with the scenes ofsex, and violence.  At age twenty-seven, she was receive the MacArthur "genius" award. Walker currently lives in New York, where she is on the faculty of the MFA program at Columbia University.

Work Cited

"Kara Walker." American Decades Primary Sources. Ed. Cynthia Rose. Vol. 10: 1990-1999. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 37-40. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 11 June 2016.

URL
http://go.galegroup.com.rpa.laguardia.edu:2048/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX3490201854&v=2.1&u=cuny_laguardia&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=fd2adf0e318eb58ee2b28ecb88289ca6

Decker, Ed, and Paula Kepos. "Walker, Kara." Contemporary Black Biography. Ed. Derek Jacques, Janice Jorgensen, and Paula Kepos. Vol. 80. Detroit: Gale, 2010. 147-150. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 11 June 2016.

URL
http://go.galegroup.com.rpa.laguardia.edu:2048/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX2624500055&v=2.1&u=cuny_laguardia&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=5a7ea03bf1b0a4ffefff8f23e5c81a4e

Week of May 20- Museum of Modern Art

Cubism was one of the most influential visual art styles of the early twentieth century. It was created by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque in Paris around 1907 and 1914. Cubism was the first abstract style of modern art. A Cubist painter wanted to emphasize the two-dimensionality of the canvas. They reduced geometric forms. Also cubist painting ignores the traditions of perspective drawing. Picasso and Braque combined representational motifs with letters. Cubism makes visible some important characteristics of modern life. Cubism suggest constant change and evolution. In addition in cubist artwork objects are analyzed, broken up.

Surrealism originated in mid 1920s by a group of writer and painters protest the direction of European culture. They proclaimed the importance of the unconscious mind of dreams, fantasies and hallucinations. Surrealism was launched in Paris in 1924. Abstract Surrealism provides suggestive elements that give wide play to the viewers imagination and emphasize color and design. This painting is called Gala Éluard  by Artist Max Ernst made in 1924. Ernst met poet Paul Éluard in Cologne in 1921. In 1922, Ernst moved to Paris, where he lived with the Éluards until 1924. By then he had become one of the founding members of Surrealism. The top of her head peels away and scrolls forward like a poster from a wall.

Week of May 13- Postwar Modern Movements

      Kiki Smith is a West German born in Germany in 1954. Smith's work addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. She grew was in New Jersey with her parents. Smith's father was a Geometric Sculptures this allowed her to experience with art. By allowing her to make cardboard models for his sculptures. Smith's theme of work was subjected around AIDS, gender and race. Her father's death in 1980 and by the AIDS death of her sister, Smith began an investigation of the human body. While she depicted the human condition in relationship to nature. In 1988 she explore a wide range of human organ including sculptures of heart, lungs, liver and stomach. Exploring bodily fluids as response to the AIDS crises and women's right. Growing up in the Catholic Church and understanding the human body, has shaped her work. In 1980s, Smith began draw based on organs and the human nervous system. Smith received many medal for her sculptures and painting. For example she received the ''Skohegan medal in 2000, the''Athena award for excellence in printmaking in 2005 etc. Around 2005 she was elected to American Academy of Arts and letters.