Kara Walker exhibits her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes and intricate shadow works which critically explore America’s underlying racial and gender tensions. They address the highly-charged themes of power, repression, violence, history and sexuality. Over the autumn months, Walker fills Camden Arts Centre’s galleries with the process of her art – from large scale graphite drawings and video to new cut paper pieces which will be produced on-site.

Connecting all of Walker’s work is an examination of power. Through characters drawn from American popular literature, culture and history,  her art exposes the darker aspects of human behaviour and the continuing power struggles at play. Currently researching the white supremacist movement in the US, her new works are peopled with characters from both past and contemporary history, merging historical documents of slavery with more recent racial tensions.

Walker’s exhibition at Camden Arts Centre will bring together two important bodies of recent work. Her Niggerati series of large graphite drawings, conceived as book covers for unwritten essays and works of fiction, investigate pivotal transitions in black American history and the missing narratives of the black migration. Shown alongside the video installation of her challenging shadow play Fall Frum Grace- Miss Pipi’s Blue Tale and other new works, including her ‘wall samplers’, wall mounted paper cut outs with mini narratives featuring ‘Civil War Revisionists and Savages’, the exhibition is an exciting opportunity for a British audience to engage with Walker’s thought-provoking works.

Thursday 10 October 

5.45 – 6.30pm  / Introductory Talk
David A. Bailey, Curator and Director of International Curators Forum, talks to Kara Walker about her first solo exhibition in London.

 6.30  –  8.30pm / Preview 

www.camdenartscentre.org