Kara Walker

Follow This Artist

Born: 1969

Lives and Works: New York, NY

Website: learn.walkerart.org/karawalker

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kara-Walker/163283767784

Education: MFA, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, 1994
BFA, Atlanta College of Art, Atlanta, GA, 1991

Kara Walker Bio

About The Artist

Kara Walker's instantly recognizable cut-paper silhouettes are visually striking and charged with racial, sexual, and historical tension, commenting on slavery, the Black American experience, and women's place in society. The characters that populate her work are almost cartoonish, the reduction of human beings to pure physiognomy and exaggerated characteristics indicative of persisting racial and gender stereotypes. "Most pieces have to do with exchanges of power, attempts to steal power away from others," she notes of her art.

Walker's work challenges viewers with scenes and characters that are puzzling, bizarre, shocking, and graphic. While at times controversial, her work encourages the type of engagement, interpretation, and dialogue that makes works of art truly socially and politically relevant. In 1997, Walker was the recipient of the prestigious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship becoming the youngest person at that time to receive the award, and her career has continued to flourish since.

Kara Walker Gallery Art

Galleries

Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, NY

Kara Walker Permanent Collections

Select Permanent Collections

The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
Centro Nazionale per le Arti Contemporanee, Rome, Italy
The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
DESTE Foundation, Athens, Greece
Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt, Germany
Foundation Museé d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Museum voor Modern Kunst, The Netherlands
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA