I did go see the Kara Walker exhibit at the Whitney this week. It was such an unsettling experience. Upon leaving I immediately ate a plate of french fries. I can't think of when I did that last. In my little carbohydrate coma, I couldn't pinpoint was so disturbing. It wasn't until later, joking about how Walker's art made me want to eat that I blurted (it was definitely a blurt): I felt uncomfortable seeing the exhibit with white people. Walker's artwork is meant to provoke and at the very least illicit a response. She writes: "I make art for anyone whos forgot what it feels like to put up a fight . . ."
Walker does large-scale silhouettes of the ante-bellum South using caricature and stereotypical images of blacks. She portrays slave masters and slaves in explicit sexual acts, and other perverse and sado-masochistic images between slaves and between slaves and their masters. I was the only person of (any) color following the docent's tour. Two other black women wandered through, but they were listening to the personal audio tour on headphones. I so wanted to be them and not to be the one person of color listening to the docent give words to the images, right there with all those people, white people around. It made me nervous. I wanted to make sure that people didn't think I was getting angry. I didn't want them to think that I was monitoring their reactions (but maybe I was). Mostly, I wanted to know what brings you here to this exhibit? Could we talk about this artwork without falling into the fissures so ready to swallow people/hurt people's feelings in a discussion involving race? Are you a safe person? And by that I mean, am I safe with you? I'd like to see the exhibit again. It continues at the Whitney through February 3; and then moves to the Hammer Museum in L.A. in mid-February. If you go, let's talk about it.
