Review: The Next Coming of Kara Walker

Kara Walker doesn’t simply make provocative art; she creates living, breathing visual narratives about race in America that are often ferociously violent and irrefutably poignant. Known for her dark print silhouettes of antebellum figures like slaves and slave masters, mammies and Uncle Toms in various forms of rage and repose, her work takes up space both in both literal and meta ways. You will not leave a Kara Walker exhibit without your mind feeling bigger, and your thought process pushed beyond its limits.

For her new exhibit — "Sikkema Jenkins and Co. is Compelled to Present The Most Astounding and Important Painting Show of the Fall Art Show Viewing Season!" — Walker released an artist statement as a kind of disclaimer in which she said she was “tired of standing up” and of being the black woman artist du jour with all the answers to racism in America. But the work in this exhibit feels nothing like art made by someone who is tired of standing up — more so, it feels like art made by someone who just redefined what it means to stand up. 

"Christ's Entry into Journalism" by Kara Walker on view at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in Chelsea.

(Kara Walker, courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York.)