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PUBLISHER
Karma Books, New York

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 6.5 x 9.25 in. / 176 pgs / 26 color / 21 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2022 p. 13   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781949172737 TRADE
List Price: $40.00 CAD $47.00 GBP £33.00

AVAILABILITY
In stock

TERRITORY
WORLD

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KARMA BOOKS, NEW YORK

Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface

By Robert Hobbs.

Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface

Themes and motifs in the art of Kara Walker, from blackface to abjection, by a leading art historian

In 2002, Kara Walker was selected to represent the United States at the prestigious Săo Paulo Art Biennial. Curator Robert Hobbs wrote extended essays on her work for this exhibition, and also for her show later that year at the Kunstverein Hannover. Because these essays have not been distributed in the US and remain among the most in-depth and essential investigations of her work, Karma is now republishing them in this new clothbound volume.
Among the most celebrated artists of the past three decades, with over 93 solo exhibitions to her credit, including a major survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker is known for her tough, critical, provocative and highly imaginative representations of African Americans and whites reaching back to antebellum times. In his analysis, Hobbs looks at the five main sources of her art: blackface Americana, Harlequin romances, Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection, Stone Mountain’s racist tourist attraction and the minstrel tradition.
Robert Hobbs (born 1946) has written more than 50 books and catalogs, focusing on such artists as Milton Avery, Alice Aycock, Lee Krasner, Robert Smithson and Kehinde Wiley. Since 1991 he has held the Rhoda Thalhimer Endowed Chair of American Art in the School of Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University. Since 2004 he has served as a visiting professor at Yale University.
Now based in New York, Kara Walker was born in Stockton, California, in 1969. She received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994; soon afterward, Walker rose to prominence for her large, provocative silhouettes installed directly onto the walls of exhibition spaces.


Featured image is reproduced from 'Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface'.

Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface

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FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/1/2023

Long-awaited ‘Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface’ releases this week!

Long-awaited ‘Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface’ releases this week!

"World’s Exposition" (1997) is reproduced from Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface, art historian Robert Hobbs’ long-awaited,176-page clothbound monograph from Karma Books, New York. Collecting two in-depth essays by Hobbs, written on the occasion of Walker exhibitions at the 2002 Săo Paulo Art Biennial and Kunstverein Hannover, the book examines her work via the lens of five important sources of her art: blackface Americana, Harlequin romances, Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection and Stone Mountain’s racist tourist attraction and the minstrel tradition. “The world of the minstrel show was a mediated realm predicated on whites’ outrageous satires of downtrodden blacks,” Hobbs concludes. “It did not matter if these white shadows in blackface were true or not: the important thing was that they were entertaining. And entertainment in turn gave truth to the lie these shows perpetuated. Building on the constructed nature of reality and the minstrel show’s contribution to it, Walker’s work uses this bowdlerized theatrical tradition as a lens for viewing the more widespread mass-mediated world in which we live. Her art overlays minstrelsy’s feigned identities with the artificiality of the Harlequin antebellum romance to characterize the simulated and shadowy world many have continued to claim as real.” continue to blog


FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/1/2023

Long-awaited ‘Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface’ releases this week!

Long-awaited ‘Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface’ releases this week!

"World’s Exposition" (1997) is reproduced from Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface, art historian Robert Hobbs’ long-awaited,176-page clothbound monograph from Karma Books, New York. Collecting two in-depth essays by Hobbs, written on the occasion of Walker exhibitions at the 2002 Săo Paulo Art Biennial and Kunstverein Hannover, the book examines her work via the lens of five important sources of her art: blackface Americana, Harlequin romances, Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection and Stone Mountain’s racist tourist attraction and the minstrel tradition. “The world of the minstrel show was a mediated realm predicated on whites’ outrageous satires of downtrodden blacks,” Hobbs concludes. “It did not matter if these white shadows in blackface were true or not: the important thing was that they were entertaining. And entertainment in turn gave truth to the lie these shows perpetuated. Building on the constructed nature of reality and the minstrel show’s contribution to it, Walker’s work uses this bowdlerized theatrical tradition as a lens for viewing the more widespread mass-mediated world in which we live. Her art overlays minstrelsy’s feigned identities with the artificiality of the Harlequin antebellum romance to characterize the simulated and shadowy world many have continued to claim as real.” continue to blog


KARA WALKER MONOGRAPHS + ARTIST'S BOOKS

Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface

KARA WALKER: WHITE SHADOWS IN BLACKFACE

Karma Books, New York

ISBN: 9781949172737
USD $40.00
| CAD $47 UK £ 33

Pub Date: 8/29/2023
Active | In stock


Kara Walker: Figa

KARA WALKER: FIGA

DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art

ISBN: 9786185039325
USD $35.00
| CAD $49.95 UK £ 29

Pub Date: 5/21/2019
Active | In stock