Freedom, a Fable: A Curious Interpretation of the Wit of a Negress in Troubled Times, Kara Walker

Archive Label 2003: The image shown here is from the middle of the book titled FREEDOM: A Curious Interpret-ation of the Wit of a Negress in Trouble. When viewing Kara Walker’s work, consider your expectations and understanding of silhouettes and pop-up books. • What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of silhouettes? Do you think silhouettes were considered “high art” or were they enjoyable profiles of people or vignettes? • Pop-up books are usually associated with children’s books and the anticipation of making a visually amusing discovery while reading a story. Look at the image in Walker’s story. What do you see? What current stereotypes of African-American women do think Walker is depicting here? • Think about how silhouettes employ the use of contrasting black and white colors to outline the image. What other contrasts can you make between these colors? Walker uses the silhouette to draw in the viewer who is then confronted with disturbing imagery. Walker notes that the “Silhouettes look so clear-cut, so crisp, it operates just as derogatory stereotypes do, making a reduction out of a real person.” FREEDOM: A Curious Interpretation of the Wit of a Negress in Trouble tells the story of a soon-to-be freed slave woman in the 19th-century who anticipates her journey back to Africa and dreaming “of a land where brown skin means nothing.” Walker looks at how stereotypes of African Americans still exist by grossly exaggerating the features and characteristics of the people in her work. This page depicts the heroine in the story giving birth to multiple babies. Walker also addresses how a “mythical Africa” is persistently “glorified” and anticipated by African Americans. Kara Walker received her M.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design in 1994 and received the prestigious MacArthur Founda-tion’s genius grant in 1997. She quickly gained recognition for her large-scale silhouettes depicting different types of violent and disturbing acts between African Americans and whites. These silhouettes are installed and read as a continuous narrative on a museum’s white walls. In her work, Walker is deliberately looking at pre and post-Civil War South to explore present-day social relationships between whites and blacks. She also examines how we come to understand history through other people’s interpretation.