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Apollo
Art Diary

Kara Walker: A Black Hole is Everything a Star Longs to Be

28 May 2021

Best known for her large-scale cut-paper silhouettes that cover entire rooms, the American artist Kara Walker offers a more intimate insight into her work in this display at the Kunstmuseum Basel (5 June–26 September). On view here are some 600 works on paper from her personal archive, presented to the public for the first time; together they show how important drawing – and the influence of masters in the medium such as Goya and Hogarth – has been in Walker’s construction of her expansive tableaux, which typically take on the history of slavery and racism in the US. Find out more from the Kunstmuseum Basel’s website.

Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary here 

Untitled, from a 24-part series (2002–04), Kara Walker.

Untitled, from a 24-part series (2002–04), Kara Walker. Archive of the artist; © Kara Walker

The Right Side (2018), Kara Walker. Kunstmuseum Basel, Kupferstichkabinett; © Kara Walker

A Shocking Declaration of Independence (2018), Kara Walker.

A Shocking Declaration of Independence (2018), Kara Walker. Kunstmuseum Basel, Kupferstichkabinett; © Kara Walker

Barack Obama as Othello ‘The Moor’ With the Severed Head of Iago in a New and Revised Ending by Kara E. Walker (2019), Kara Walker. Joyner/Guiffrida Collection, San Francisco. Photo: Jason Wyche; © Kara Walker

Kara Walker photographed in her studio in 2019.

Kara Walker photographed in her studio in 2019. Photo: Ari Marcopoulos