From Publishers Weekly
When Walker's explosive black paper silhouettes began appearing in galleries in the early '90s, forcing stereotypical slavery-era iconography to represent graphically sexualized plantation violence and relentlessly destroyed innocence, it was clear that a new artistic vocabulary had been discovered and delivered full force. This collection of Walker's astonishing tableaux dramatizes black-white interactions via horrifically accurate imaginings of one-on-one encounters-encounters that, in their microcosms of exploitation and mutual dependency, seem to speak directly to current forms of black-white relations. The first three editors are at the college museums at Skidmore, Clark Art Institute and Williams respectively, and Reinhardt is a political scientist at Williams; they offer 122 illustrations (94 in color), a selection of Walker's texts (grave, faux na‹ve, sarcastic) and four essays, including one from Michele Wallace (Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman). The result is a terrific introduction to an extraordinary and still uncoiling large-scale project..
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Artist Walker's large-scale installations of black paper cutouts, silhouettes that from a distance look like lively, theatrical scenes from the antebellum era but which upon closer examination prove to be sharp-edged, sexually graphic, and disturbing parodies, have elicited both high praise and vehement condemnation. This well-designed and illuminating book is the first to grapple with Walker's audacious and shrewdly provocative inquiries into the sexual and racial stereotypes that arose from the Deep South's culture of oppression and hypocrisy, terror and hate, and that continue to poison lives today. Critical essays discuss Walker's rich visual lexicon and subversive humor, her use of silhouettes to strongly contrast black and white and conceal detail, thus reducing individuals to the roles racism forced on them. Walker's fascination with colonial fantasies, pulp romance, and slave narratives is thoroughly analyzed, as are her writings, a crucial aspect of her bold investigations into racial caricatures. Walker gives new meaning to the term
body politic as she cajoles viewers into confronting painful questions of power, sex, and race.
Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
