Walker creates work that speaks to current issues of our time through the use of the autobiographical voice and a revisionist approach to history. These strategies have been particularly relevant to women and to other African American artists. This work, created in 1966, appropriates the look of nineteenth-century silhouettes. It presents a young white boy and a young black girl dressing in a landscape. At first viewing, the figures appear to be dancing. The image is engaging and idyllic. But upon close inspection, the viewer realizes that the scene is charged with provocative but unanswered questions. What went on between these two individuals? This coupling of both the bucolic and the confrontational gives this work its particular punch.
Source: NEWS March April 2000
Kara Walker is well known for her controversial cut outs graphically depicting racial stereotypes from the antebellum South. She uses humor and disbelief as strategies to bring attention to a collective history that has created, in part, how American society views race.
Canvas: 60 1/8 × 50 1/8 in. (152.7 × 127.3 cm)
