Wednesday January 6, 2010 at 8pm
Language: English
Free Entrance
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  About the event |
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Internationally renowned artist Kara Walker, whose work Testimony is on display in Beirut Art Center’s current exhibition America, will give a talk at the center.
She will be presenting Eight Possible Beginnings and Six Miles from Springfield on the Franklin Road, two short shadow puppet films, as well as an overview of installations, drawings and written work, in which she has attempted to undertake and undermine, mix up and satirize stereotypical perceptions of Black Identity and the American historical narrative.
«The quest for freedom, equality, and power are major themes of the African-American "Experience", and until the recent election of Barack Obama, regarded internally as an uphill battle, a ritual pursuit with token rewards. One persistent question in my work has been what are the limits of this freedom and power, how does it apply to making art? Many of the tenets of the Black Arts Movement and Black Power movement sought to restrict the outlets for Black Creativity to themes and styles that reflected positively on a shared struggle. My work seeks to work within the constraints of "historical subjects, lovingly rendered for the uplift of the people" while reveling in my ambivalence, and wonton disregard for the "whole truth"» (Kara Walker)
Kara Walker was born in Stockton, California, and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. She graduated from the Atlanta College of Art in 1991 and received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994. Walker has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions. Her recent solo museum shows include "Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love," which traveled to: The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, ARC/ Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, France, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth and a solo show at CAC Málaga, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Spain. She also participated in the 52nd Venice Biennale, in June of 2007. She was the recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Achievement Award in 1997, the Deutsche Bank Prize in 2000, United States Artists Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship in 2008, and the United States representative to the 25th International São Paulo Biennial in Brazil in 2002. Her work is included in numerous museums and public collections including The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Tate Gallery, London, the Centro Nazionale per le Arti Contemporanee, Rome, and Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt. She lives and works in New York City. |
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