Published in 1997 by the historic Landfall Press in Chicago, prior to the printmaker's move to Santa Fe, the present lot is from a limited edition of 40 linocuts of Kara Walker's graphically compelling, Keys to the Coop. While earning her Masters of Fine Art at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Walker first started making cut-outs in 1993 by outlining silhouettes on black paper and linoleum with grease pencils or pastel crayons. Subsequently, Walker has continued to complicate and excel at this high-relief medium. By cutting silhouetted figures out with a knife, Walker is able to produce images in reverse that are then placed on another surface for display. Arriving at a style simultaneously traditional and cutting-edge, Walker opens a powerful dialogue with the past and present concerning the Black American experience, particularly, in relation to the historical legacy of slavery.
In Keys to the Coop, Walker depicts a girl and a headless chicken, characterized by a cartoon-like style. The girl, depicted in profile, holds a key and a feathery object, possibly the chicken's head, near her open mouth. Here, Walker alludes to the stereotype that chicken is a favorite food of Black people while also referencing the fact that slaves were often given undesirable cuts of meat lacking in sufficient nourishment. On a macro level, the work's title, Keys to the Coop, may symbolize broader notions of containment and control, echoing themes of slavery and power relations. Walker's use of silhouettes, popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, underscores her interest in historical depictions of race and their simplistic portrayal of complex figures. Yet there is something reminiscent of the visceral impact of popular comics in this approach, too. Walker's larger practice includes drawing, painting, and film, all exploring the imagery and language surrounding race relations in the United States.
I do what I am feeling and what I’m feeling is monstrous. And I do it in the nicest possible way.
Kara Walker
Kara Walker b. 1969
Born in Stockton, California and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Kara Walker studied at the Atlanta College of Art (BFA, 1991) and the Rhode Island School of Design (MFA, 1994). A childhood spent watching her father, an artist, draw and paint inspired her to pursue art as a career. Walker is best known for the raw, visceral, and controversial nature of her creations that focus on race, gender and sexuality. She often works in panoramic friezes of cut-paper silhouettes, a traditionally proper Victorian medium, creating theatrical spaces and physically immersive narratives addressing the history of American slavery and racism. Her work does not shy away from the truths of America’s dark past; instead, unruly figures fornicate, fight, and violate each other, forcing the viewer to grapple with the brutality of racism and inequality.
Walker is also a painter, printmaker, installation artist, and filmmaker. She is the recipient of many awards, notably the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Achievement Award in 1997 and the United States Artists, Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship in 2008. In 2012, Walker became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and can be found in museums and public collections throughout the United States and Europe including The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Tate Gallery, London, the Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo (MAXXI), Rome, and Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt.
