Kara Walker: After the Deluge

By Kara Walker

Since she first came to the attention of the art world nearly ten years ago, Kara Walker has become one of the most important artists of her generation. Championed by the art world for her fearless embrace of challenging subject matter, Walker has created a body of work that looks unflinchingly at racial inequality in the United States. Known for her bold images using the traditional silhouette, Walker upends the genteel, Victorian origins of the medium by graphically portraying scenes from the antebellum South to explore the politics of slavery, race, and gender. Inspired by the tragedy that beset the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, Walker has created a volume exploring the interconnectedness of the subject of the sea, race, and poverty by juxtaposing examples of her work and historical works from the 19th century. This unique and important book capitalizes on Walker's deftness at graphic and visceral storytelling, affording the reader a deeply intimate experience of the difficult themes the artist explores.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0847829812
• ISBN13: 9780847829811
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Rizzoli International Publications
• Length: 118 Pages
• Weight: 1.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 8.7" x 10.4"

Customer Reviews

An Art of Provocation and Seduction

Kara Walker has been one of the most lauded artist of the past decade, coming to prominence in 1997 when she received the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship at the age of twenty-right. While much has been made of the provocative and sometimes incendiary nature of her work that deals with race and American history, "After the Deluge" lays bare some of the many sources that have inspired and informed her work. The book accompanied a magnificent exhibition that Walker curated at the Metropolitan Museum of Art using both her own work and work from the museum's collection. The book contains the material from the show though not it's engaging layout, since the book was already in production by the time the show opened. But this books serves as a wonderful and informative introduction to one the most important artists of the the 20th and 21st century.