243. Darkytown Rebellion. Kara Walker. 2001 CE Cut paper and projection on wall

• Technique
  • The artist draws images with a greasy white pencil or soft pastel crayon on large pieces of black paper and then cuts the paper with a knife
  • Images are then adhered to a gallery wall with wax
  • The artist uses traditional silhouette forms
  • Overhead projectors throw colored light onto the walls, ceilings, and floor
  • Cast shadows of the viewers body mingle with the black paper images
• Context
  • Kara Walker is a California-born, New York–based, African-American artist
  • The work explores themes of African-Americans in the antebellum South: a teenager holds a flag that resembles a colonial ship sail; one man has his leg cut off; a woman is carting for newborns
  • The work explores how stereotypes and caricatures of African-Americans have been presented
  • Inspired by an anonymous landscape called “Darkytown”; it was the artist’s invention to have the figures in rebellion
  • This is not a recreation of a historical event, but a commentary on history as it has been presented in the past and present
  • The viewer interacts with the work, walking around it, engaging in elements of it; the viewer is part of the history of the piece.