Kara Walker's "A Subtlety"

Last Friday I went to see Kara Walker's "A Subtlety" exhibition at the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I'm so intrigued by Walker's work for this exhibition -- I mean sculptures and a massive sphinx made out of sugar is pretty darn impressive! Especially impressive (as well as ironic) is to connect the complicated history of sugar, slavery and the brutalities of such through the sweet confection, and then to pose them in a place that manufactured it. Brilliant.

For those of you not familiar with Kara Walker, a major catalyst for her work is the antebellum south. And of course what goes hand-in-hand with that is slavery and the brutality that accompanies it. I saw her work in person for the first time a few years ago at the SFMoMA in San Francisco. Her silhouettes were whimsical but dark at the same time. A very subtle but loud approach in depicting the atrocities of slavery. And sometimes a shadow of an idea is lot more eerie than the actual physicalness of it. 

Back to Williamsburg. The line was long, but it moved moderately fast considering it was a Friday after work. Thankfully there were guys selling popsicles right next to the line which made it so much more tolerable. We all had to sign a waiver form which in short basically stated hey guys this is an old ass factory so if you get asbestos or injured on the premises it's not our fault. 

Ok, first I have to explain to you - it was so weird going into the factory. I used to live in Williamsburg and would always pass by this sealed up, creepy old factory. And seriously every time I would walk past, there was this RANCID odor. So now, fast forward years later, I was entering this place (and in sandals, ahhhhh!). Upon entering I was met with a subtle rancidity (like rancid sugar and probably some other not great for your health stuff). Asbestos here we come! The space though, the space was AMAZING. 

And the sculptures. I was in awe. They were so alive. There were several boy sculptures carrying huge baskets around the space. The little boys were dripping. It's been hot, what can I say. But they looked like they were dripping blood. Brownish red molasses "blood" pooled at their feet. Some boy sculptures had already collapsed and had created grotesque shapes. Dissected humanness. Dissections and lumps of what their bodies were.

And then there was the sphinx. The sphinx rose up dominating the space. In bleached sugar, she wore a handkerchief around her head and nothing else. It was a stance of poise and degradation. Elevation and subjugation. And the only word I could think of was wow. Circling the sphinx I arrived to her backside, where her vulva was exposed. Private, intimate. What does it mean to be so regal, embodying this sphinx stance of strength and heritage but all the while being so exposed and unprotected. 

This is what Kara Walker is so good at. Taking the brutal and projecting it through a seemly rose colored lens that is cloying like the smell of rancid sugar.

"A Subtlety" on view through July 6.