NoteWorthy Art Books (and Bricks), 2021

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

As it was for PhotoBooks, 2021 was a challenging year to see as many newly published Art Books as in years past.

Still, the companies kept releasing them, and there were some terrific ArtBooks released this past year. Since there is no such thing as “best” in the Arts, here are those I most highly recommend, which I call NoteWorthy.

MoMA’s Endless Wall of Art Books is at least 60 feet high and twice as wide. I’ve given up seeing Yoko Ono: Lumiere de L’aube under the sleeping cat sculpture about 20 feet above the lady’s outstretched arm!

NoteWorthy Art Books, 2021

Following on the heels of Jordan Casteel’s terrific New Museum show, Jordan Casteel: Within Reach, accompanied by the now classic book of the same name, 2021 was the year of terrific and important Art Books by Black Women Painters, known, and on the verge of becoming much more well known. I’ll celebrate them first-

An early nominee for Art Book of the Decade.

Kara Walker: A Black Hole Is Everything A Star Longs To Be, JRP Editions- Kara Walker has never been one to mince a line, a word or a cut image, and in A Black Hole Is Everything, her raw power is seen in full effect in page after page (600 in all!) of stunning Drawings in this catalog for a show of the same name at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, which she has said was born of “an excavation of my archives.” For those who missed the show, it serves as an excellent retrospective of her Drawings. As anyone who has seen her Drawing shows at Sikkima Jenkins & Co. over the past few years can attest, her Drawings are often timely, and then will surprise by referencing Art history in equally fresh, unique, even humorous, ways. 700 of them created between 1992 and 2020 are included here, with only a small number I saw in her shows, allowing the reader to trace the evolution of this vital side of the Artis’s creativity. Most have never been published. While her huge installations and cut paper pieces often have an all-encompassing effect, her Drawings, which feature immediacy and intimacy, show another side of her range. A number of Kara Walker’s earlier books are now quite hard to find. Given the size of A Black Hole is Everything and the fact that it’s imported, don’t wait long before grabbing yours. An early nominee for one of the most important Art Books of the decade.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly In League With The Night, DAP & Tate- A big year for the British Artist is captured in full effect in this fine book ostensibly published for her exhibition at the Tate, London. It also serves as a fine introduction to her work for those who didn’t see it. I saw her debut NYC solo show in 2019, which the Artist attended, and was immediately impressed with how she made the influence of the masters, like Velazquez and Goya, entirely her own. Her figures are always strong, set against subtle backgrounds, though the overall tone is dark, which is something of a trademark of the Artist, she occasionally offsets them with vibrant color. In this regard, they affect me like some of Hopper’s urban portraits, but Ms. Yiadom-Boakye’s work is even darker. A Painter just beginning to receive world-wide acclaim. I don’t see that ending any time soon.

Toyin Ojih Odutola: The UmuEze Amara Clan and the Hour of Obafemi, Rizzoli Electa- I can’t remember when the last time was I was so blown away by a Painter’s debut monograph. And this is after I had seen her terrific Whitney Museum show in 2017, and her work included in an equally wonderful group show at Jack Shainman Gallery in September, 2018. So, her work was not new to me when I picked up The Umueze Amara Clan. Still, I was just mesmerized by it as I paged through and every single time I pick it up since that feeling returns. Her unique style reminds me of a touch of Lucian Freud or Kathe Kollwitz, with larger touches of Charles White and Kerry James Marshall, but, in the end, comparisons are utterly pointless. I’m sure some will pick this up and say Ms. Odutola is “on her way to becoming a great Painter.” Ummm…no. She is one right now. An important book. Not to be missed.

Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing Serpentine Gallery Most recently, I’ve been completely lost in Jennifer Packer’s work and the exceptional book, Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing, one of the most beautifully designed Painting books I’ve seen- in a year of exceptionally beautifully designed Painting books. Jennifer Packer is another Painter I was introduced to at the Whitney Museum- first in 4 Paintings in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, and now in her spectacular Whitney solo show of the same name as this book, which I saw the day it opened on October 30th, and is currently up as I write this. I’ll have more to say about her soon.

Mickalene Thomas, Phaidon- The newest book on this list was published just in time to make it, and I attended its release just this week. It, too, is one of the most beautifully designed Art Books of 2021, and a fitting overview of the work of this important and ground-breaking Artist & Activist who’s work is Photography based. It’s an overdue collection that was worth every bit of the wait. It joins Aperture’s excellent overview of her Photography, Muse, as an essential book on Ms. Thomas’s work.

Pick one of them? I can’t. I don’t think you can go wrong with whichever one you choose. All are Artists who will only be more and more important as time goes on, yet each of their books sticks a flag in the ground for their Art, and their vision, while making stunning cases for their work right now. 

Hito Steyerl, I Will Survive, Spector Books- Though a catalog for a European retrospective covering 30 years of her work, I’m moving this book out of the Retrospective or Exhibition Catalog category this year because her work is that important and this book is just so well done (like Paolo Pellegrin: Un’Antologia was among NoteWorthy PhotoBooks I looked at in 2020). Ms. Steyerl is probably better known in Europe where she famously turned down a top German honor, akin to British knighthood, because of her country’s pandemic response, so this book will hit Americans like it did me- a jolting wake up call to her work, her career, her ideas and how of-the-moment they seem today. (See Sara Cwynar in my NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2021 piece). Primarily a filmmaker (like Ms. Cwynar and Arthur Jaffa), theoretician and writer, her work centers on the circulation of images. As images take over our lives, in every realm besides Art, Hito Steyerl has been pointing out the dangers and the damages of this for a very long time. If her time isn’t now, it’s never going to be her time. The loss will be to the rest of us it’s all happening to who haven’t checked her work out. 

NoteWorthy Art Book/Autobiography, 2021

Ai Weiwei, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows– A few years ago I wondered if Ai Weiwei was the Artist of the Decade. Now that the 20 teens are over, it’s hard to think of anyone else who had the impact on both Art, and the world, as the former New Yorker, who finally left China behind for Germany, had between 2010 and 2019. His Autobiography couldn’t be more down to earth or matter of fact but that takes nothing away from how riveting page after page is. His journey is legendary, and I’ve written about it before, but to hear him lay it all out, in detail, makes for one of the most compelling Artist’s Autobiographies in the history of Art in my view. An essential document- on Art, on life, on growing up in China, and on living in the world today. 

NoteWorthy Exhibition Catalogs, 2021

Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands, Yale – A gorgeous book and terrific overview of the work of the late Chinese-American Artist who based some of her Paintings on the work of Dorothea Lange. Not unlike Ai Weiwei, Hung Liu lived with her family in exile during her childhood in China after Mao banished them to the hinterlands for “re-education.” Hung Liu came to know the hardships Dorothea Lange showed personally and spent the rest of her life expressing that in her work showing the disenfranchised of both her countries. Published to accompany the first museum retrospective of her work at the Smithsonian’s Portrait Gallery, the Artist died as it was about to open. (My look at a simultaneous Fall, 2021 NYC show she also worked on before she passed is here.) The book serves as a terrific introduction to the work of an Artist who’s work I believe is going to be with us for the long haul. 

The Painter I’ve been looking at, and obsessed with, longer than any other FINALLY gets a book with text & images worthy of him & his Art.

Van Eyck– A “once in a lifetime” show of the work of the Artist I’ve been looking at longer than any other that I missed seeing in person due to the virus. The accompanying book gave me a second chance for which I am very grateful. Overflowing with the latest scholarship on Jan and his mysterious brother Hubert, two Artists who have been largely overlooked in the explosion of Art monographs this past decade. In my opinion, you buy this book for the text. Though a very large book, it does have numerous full page illustrations, which in my view are best seen in the context of supporting points made in the text. All of that said, it is the finest “coffee table” Van Eyck book available1. No Van Eyck book can hope to top the images available for free online at closertovaneyck.org, which I wrote about here, where you can zoom in as close as you want, seeing Art in entirely new ways, which I believe will soon become the norm (issues of print quality vs screen image quality aside). Jan van Eyck has been (rightly, in my view) honored for his unsurpassed technical mastery. Yet, there is far more going on in his work than just brilliant Painting. The man was an equally extraordinary thinker as well, leaving as much to think about in his work as there is to look at. Van Eyck is the state of the art of Van Eyck scholarship and is likely to remain so for a while, though I am very happy to see that scholars all over the world are continuing to explore his life and work. Don’t stop now!

NoteWorthy Art Book Publisher, 2021

A selection of Taschen’s huge XXL books that weigh 16-22 pounds each. Many are the best way to see the most works by the given Artist in the largest size. They generally run about $200, before they go out of print, which is considerably cheaper than it would cost to go and see these works in person. Frida Kahlo is their newest XXL and immediately goes to the top of the class of Kahlo books as THE best place to see her work. The Rembrandt on the far right was a NoteWorthy Art Book of 2020.

Taschen. It’s just impossible for me not to single out the longstanding, large German publisher for special notice. In particular, I want to make readers aware of the fact that they publish some of the great bargains in new Art Books in a series I call “the bricks.” They’re about the same size and weight as a brick, but they are packed from cover to cover with high quality illustrations and photos and, usually, very good text. At $20 to $25 each, the bricks are the biggest bargain in Art books known to me. ANYone interested in Art should know about them and check them out.

Pick your size. Top to bottom (left to right), Van Gogh in the old, smaller, brick, on top of Basquiat in the new larger brick, on top of The Charlie Chaplin Archives XL and The Charlie Chaplin Archives XXL, bottom, which comes in a brown shipping box.

The subjects, usually monographs, cover a surprisingly wide range of styles from the Old Masters to Basquiat and David Hockney. This past year saw Taschen release their incredible $200 Basquiat XXL 20 pound behemoth in a brick. Yes, the entire book is here, and yes the reproductions are reduced. Still, for $25. list price and over 500 pages, it’s an impossible- to-beat bargain. That’s the thing with Taschen. They release extremely well done Art Books in various sizes over time. First, the huge XXL edition, which usually clock in at about 20 pounds or so and are upwards of 2 feet tall for about said $200. They are, often, the last word on their subject Artist. Then, a year or so later comes the XL size. Substantially smaller and lighter, but still larger than most Art Books, for about $80. Still, at about 3/4 the size of the XXL, I think it’s a very good deal.

THE greatest bargain in Art books known to me. A row of “bricks” show how Taschen has slightly changed their size over the past decade. The newer releases, part of their 40th Anniversary series, like Egon Schiele and the Basquiat, are the bigger ones. The older bricks list for $20(!), the newer books list for $25. This entire row of 8 books lists for $175., less than the cost of one XXL!

And finally, a few years after the XL comes the brick. So, the buyer has choices. 3 sizes, priced accordingly, for the exact same book. You can build an excellent Art library with only the bricks. They’re handy, excellent overviews that hold up regardless of whatever other books come out, and any work you want to see larger can generally be found elsewhere or online.  I’ve been buying the bricks since they began releasing them, and while I prefer the XXL for some books (like the Rembrandt Complete Paintings), I generally wind up with the brick as time goes on. For me, the best thing about these Taschen books (in XXL, XL or brick size) is a good number of them feature “The Complete Works” or “The Complete Paintings,” something that you really can’t see anywhere else in contemporary Art books which make them an essential resource in which ever size you choose.

NoteWorthy Older Art Book Discovered in 2021- Mea Culpa!

Charlotte Salomon looks out at us in a Self Portrait from 1940 when the Artist was about 23, about two years before she was murdered. This Self Portrait is not part of Life? or Theatre? This is a copy of the 1981 first English edition, published by Gary Schwartz through Viking,  the first book to publish the complete Life? or Theater? It’s large size makes it the one to look for among sub-$100 versions.

Charlotte Salomon- Life? or Theatre? As I wrote about the incomparable Photographer & Artist Francesca Woodman a few years ago in my NoteWorthy PhotoBooks piece for 2019, I am equally unable to pick up a copy of Life? or Theatre? and not break into tears. Charlotte Salomon, 1917-42,  is one of the most remarkable Artists in Art history, an Artist who achieved something no other Artist known to me has- ever. She recreated her life’s story, and that of her family, in over 900 Paintings, which tell one continuous story that she completed just before being arrested by the Nazis and then executed at about 25 years of age. Equal parts cinema, opera and passion-play, each work is also accompanied by Music! Even more remarkably, each Painting has a velum overlay with text and Drawing on it that creates something of a different experience than seeing the Painting alone. Stylistically, it’s hard for me to look at Lotte’s work and not think of the great Marc Chagall (who, by some reports “was amazed by them” when he was shown them), but she definitely has her own style, one that she executed with just 3 colors!

The great Art writer Gary Schwartz should get the credit for rescuing her work from the archives where her parents donated it, putting together the first publication of the complete Life? or Theater? in 1980. Since, it’s been reprinted a number of times, all of which have gone in and out of print. There are good and not so good things about each edition. Just make sure to get a complete edition (in spite of what I just said above, I’d avoid the Taschen brick edition since it’s incomplete. The edition pictured above is about the same size and is complete). It’s the only series of Paintings ever created that can be “read” as a book! And, it’s also the ultimate revenge of the young Jewish girl who created a body of work that will be seen for as long as people have eyes to look with and will continue to gain her new admirers all the while. After all is said and done, in my eyes, as Life? or Theater? proves, great Art doesn’t only live today. I’m not interested in any other kind.

*Soundtrack for this Post is “Future People” by Alabama Shakes. Full lyrics, here.

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  1. Ghent Altarpiece: Art, History, Science and Religion, 2019, is an excellent book focused on that one work, based around its ongoing restoration.

Art In Manhattan, 2017- And Then There Were Five

It was a year of discovery. A year where I discovered some great Artists I previously hadn’t known, finally caught up with some I knew about but hadn’t gotten to see much of their work, and got lost exploring some remarkable Retrospectives- for Raymond Pettibon and Robert Rauschenberg, both accompanied by memorable satellite shows. Most of these are represented in my monthly NoteWorthy Show selections throughout the year. But? There was more! So, I’m going to take this moment to pause and look back at the revelations of 2017, look at some memorable shows I didn’t write about at the time, and finally, highlight a pair of men who, I feel, had an exceptional 2017 in Manhattan Art.

No doubt about it- the biggest discovery this year was a long overdue deep dive into the world of Contemporary Photography. From seeing well over 100 Photography shows, to spending five long days at “AIPAD: The Photography Show” (with well over 120 galleries from all over the world showing work), to going through hundreds of PhotoBooks, and meeting many Photographers, legendary, famous, or not quite yet, along with the staffs of two of the world’s leading Photography organizations- Aperture and Magnum, both celebrating major anniversaries this year. Rarely did a week pass when Photography wasn’t in the the picture. Of course, in a world were there are now more cameras than people it’s impossible to get to see everyone who’s doing great work. As happens each year, NO matter WHAT I do to prevent it, this year too, there were shows I didn’t find out about until they closed. UGGGH!!!! Along the way, there were quite a few revelations, and a good many other things solidified…at least for the moment.

First, the revelations. In Photography, particularly among those younger than 50 (I say 50 only because I seem to know/have heard of many of those over) and unknown to me, Gregory Halpern was the biggest revelation I had this year. His book “Zzyzx” won the prestigious Aperture Best Book Award for 2016, but I didn’t know that when I discovered his work at Aperture’s booth at AIPAD. I had never heard of him.

Gregory Halpern, “Untitled,” 2016, from his “Buffalo” series. Click any Photo for full size.

The work, “Untitled,” was a Photograph Aperture had run in the Spring, 2017 issues of it’s excellent quarterly magazine, in a pictorial by Mr. Halpern, titled “Buffalo.” I didn’t know that then, either. I simply saw the work, and then couldn’t get it out of my mind. It now hangs a few feet away. Out of everything I saw at AIPAD, particularly by those younger than 50 and unknown to me, this work grabbed me and didn’t let go. I went home that night with one thought on my mind- “WHO is Gregory Halpern?” After researching him most of the night, (including finding his incredibly honest and insightful answer to one very important question), serendipitously, I got to meet him the next day, and spoke to him about his book. It turned out to be a classic case where some things are better left unexamined. Gregory was so forthcoming in his answers about specific images I came too close for comfort to losing some of their mystery.

Gregory Halpern standing next “Untitled,” at Aperture’s Booth at AIPAD, March 31st.

In addition to being, in my eyes, one of the most talented Photographers of his generation, he is, also, one of it’s best writers. He’s the co-author of one of the most popular and respected Photography Manuals of 2017, “The Photographer’s Playbook,” and his occasionally published articles always enlighten and leave me wanting more. A Harvard grad, he’s now a professor in the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology for some very lucky students. As if all of that isn’t enough, his wife, Ahndraya Parlato is, also, one of the revelations of the year as a Photographer. Her Photographs “glow”- in one way or another. Her most recent book, “A Spectacle and Nothing Strange,” is ethereal…mesmerizing…magical.

Leaving aside age or era, the work of Fred Herzog was, also, unknown to me. Early pioneers of color Photography have taken decades coming to the attention they deserve, such was the disdain color held among the Photographic cognoscenti for color Photography. With the publication of “Fred Herzog: Modern Color,” in February, 2017, an Artist who was fairly well-known, and appreciated, in his native Canada finally began becoming wider known in the USA. His work was memorably shown by Equinox Gallery of Vancouver at AIPAD this spring, where, I felt, it stood out.

Fred Herzog, “Main Barber,” 1968, seen at Equinox Gallery’s AIPAD booth.

Fred Herzog considers Saul Leiter THE master of early color Photography, and even with a giant like William Eggleston to consider (who’s 1976 MoMA show, “Photographs by William Eggleston,” which can be “visited” here, is widely credited with making color Photography “acceptable” in the world of “Fine Art”), it’s hard to argue with him. No Photographer new to me, regardless of age or period, had a bigger impact on me this year than Saul Leiter.

Saul Leiter, “Through Boards,” Circa 1957. This image appears (cropped) on the cover of the now classic book, “Saul Leiter: Early Color,” 2006, which launched the “Saul Leiter Renaissance.” It’s, perhaps, my very favorite Photobook. Sadly, now out of print, it would take real diligence to find a very good copy for less than $100. But, there are many worse uses of time. Photo by the Saul Leiter Foundation.

It took until 2006 for Saul Leiter to be recognized- FIFTY EIGHT years after he started taking color photographs. As with William Eggleston, Mr. Leiter was, also, a devoted Painter. I can see it in both of their work, and I believe it’s part of the reason their work speaks to me, perhaps, more than the work of any other Photographer of any period. It was his friend, no less than the great Artist Richard Pousette-Dart (who’s also an under appreciated Photographer), to encouraged him to pursue Photography.

“Walk with Soames,” 1958, This was 20 YEARS before William Eggleston’s ground breaking MoMA show “legitimized” color Photography in the Art world! Photo by Howard Greenberg Gallery.

Mr. Leiter saw and used color in his Photography in ways no one else has, achieving effects that today’s finest digital manipulators can only dream of. Saul Leiter didn’t need Photoshop to get his results. As very good as his Black & White work is, like Turner or Van Gogh, Saul Leiter was a true Poet of color, perhaps the greatest Master of Color in Photography, though it’s, of course, impossible and pointless to qualitatively compare.

“T,” Circa 1950(!).Photo by the Saul Leiter Foundation. Daring. Gorgeous.

A number of established Photographers had terrific shows in NYC in 2017 that I didn’t get to write about here. Among them are Mark Steinmetz, Mike Mandel, Raghubir Singh (though marked by controversy), Richard Avedon, Herman Leonard, Michael Kenna, and Edward Burtynsky. But, I’m going to address one I simply can’t let pass, because I continue to think about it.

Richard Misrach’s Photo, “Effigy #3, near Jacumba, California,” 2009, Pigment print mounted to Dibond, right rear, with Guillermo Galindo’s Musical Instrumet/Sculpure “Effigy,” 2014, center2014. Barely visible are two strings between the forearms. The grey rectangle on the lower left side of the pedestal is where a speaker is mounted.

“Richard Misrach: Border Cantos,” (at Pace, 510 West 25th Street), was an utterly remarkable and serendipitous collaboration between renowned Photographer Richard Misrach & Composer/Sculptor Guillermo Galindo on the subject of our southern border, those protecting it, and those trying to cross it. To accompany Mr. Misrach’s large, atmospheric Photographs, Mr. Galindo created a whole orchestra of Musical Instruments out of objects found along the border, and proceeded to compose and record a 4 hour score that was looped in the show’s back room to meditative effect, ingeniously installed so that the music being played was coming from speakers mounted inside the display of the specific instruments that were playing at any given moment. (The Artists have an excellent website for this show where you can, also, hear these remarkable instruments.)

Instruments, like this. Guillermo Galindo, “Tortillafono/Wall Vibraphone,” 2014, Metal. The discarded metal cap of an electrical box from the failed SBInet (Secure Border Initiative) surveillance program was turned into a mallet and string instrument sits in front of Richard Misrach’s “Artifacts fround from California to Texas between 2013 and 2015,” 2013-5, 86 x 57 inches, Pigment prints mounted to Dibond. Photos of items found along the border.

And this- Guillermo Galindo, “Teclata,” His description- “On this keyboard, empty cans, bottles, and a plastic cup act as piano strings. The surface of the instrument is decorated with Border Patrol ammunition boxes.”

The surround sound effect was like sitting in the middle of a small chamber music group. The instruments, themselves, were beautiful as sculpture, and the music, which sounded to me like a cross between Harry Partch (who, also, made his own instruments) and John Cage, on instruments that looked like Rauschenbergs, had me asking if it had been released on CD. Why not?

Richard Misrach, “Playas de Tijuana #1, San Diego,” 2013, Pigment print mounted to Dibond, 42 x 160 inches.

Mr. Misrach, who has spent forty years working in the American Desert on his renown “Desert Cantos” project, showed a remarkable selection of images taken since 2004, but more intensely since 2009 (the collaboration with Mr. Galindo dates back to 2012), that told the story in slices. The effect of the music, the images and the sculptures (musical and non) was hypnotic, and ultimately meditative on the situation, the people protecting the border, and the refugees, while at the same time, even for those directly untouched by this story, the show spoke to a larger sense of walls, borders and refugees, and resilience. The Artists found, or created, beauty in this situation, reflecting the very perseverance that is at the essence of survival.

Richard Misrach, “Wall, east of Nogales, Arizona,” 2014, 68 x 84 inches, Pigment print mounted to Dibond

On the Painting & Drawing front, the most important Painting/Drawing gallery show I haven’t addressed was Kara Walker (at Sikkema Jenkins and Co.). Before it opened the buildup was downright intense. First, these posters began appearing, which certainly raised eyebrows until you notice (along the lower left side) that the text was written by the Artist. The show was also featured in a cover article in one of the last print issues of the Village Voice. I can’t remember the last time an Art show made the Voice’s cover, but this was the last time one did.

 Kara Walker sounds a bit weary in the poster, and particularly in the “Artist’s Statement” that appears on the show’s page on the Sikkema website.

“Dredging the Quagmire (Bottomless Pit),” 2017 Oil stick and Sumi ink on paper collaged on linen, 18 feet long, seen in the show’s first room. A “bottomless quagmire” is what the history of and current state of race and gender relations does feel like at this moment in time.

In the lower right side, this almost submerged head seemed to echo Ms. Walker’s weariness in her Artist’s Statement. “But frankly I am tired, tired of standing up, being counted, tired of ‘having a voice’ or worse ‘being a role model.'”

After all the anticipation and buildup, at the packed opening, Ms. Walker, herself, was only to be seen for a little while, at least while I was there.

Kara Walker at the opening, September 7, 2017, with part of  “U.S.A. Idioms,” 2017, Sumi ink and collage on paper, almost 15 by 12 feet, in the background.

While she continues to create her signature Silhouettes, showing a gorgeous 2017 work titled “Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something),” that’s almost 18 1/2 feet long, the bulk of the show consists on her ink and collage works, that have increasingly come to the forefront of her shows as time has gone on, most recently in her Cleveland Museum show, “The Ecstasy of St. Kara,” 2016, and at MoMA’s “Unfinished Conversations: New Work from the Collection,” which closed on July 30, 2017, where her “40 Acres of Mules,” a Charcoal Drawing on 3 sheets totaling almost 18 feet long that was acquired by the Museum the year before, was on view in what was something of a one-work preview for her Sikkema show.

“Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something),” 2017, Cut paper on canvas. For me, one thing Ms. Walker’s Silhouettes all seem to ask is “Why do you see, what you see?”

Whereas it’s hard for me to imagine the care, patience and deliberation it must take for Ms. Walker to create one of her silhouettes, her Drawing & Collages look like they are done in bursts of raw energy and passion. At times the images approach the quality of a caricature of an event. No matter the differences in creation, when you see her Silhouettes and Drawings side by side they’re unmistakably by the same Artist.

While the Silhouettes, mostly, seem to leave quite a bit to the imagination, including the race of each character, her Drawings & Collages do not, especially when it comes to violence. Nothing is held back, hinted at or hidden. In the Drawings and collages, she has taken away the curtain inherent in Silhouettes in depicting racism and gender crimes. We see the faces, skin color, eyes, and what each one is involved in doing.  You can choose to look away, but otherwise, it’s pretty hard to “miss” what’s going on. The results are shocking, though they have precedent going back to Goya’s “Los Caprichos,” and “The Disasters of War,” and Daumier through Warhol, as well as in the work of Photojournalists and “Conflict Photographers” from all over the world. In Kara Walker’s work, though, the time is centered between 1788, when slavery was legalized in the US, through post Civil War “Reconstruction.”  Where the Silhouettes present a shadow of the figure, and the actions, the Drawings shine direct light. In fact, there are almost no shadows in her drawings- there’s no where for the perpetrators to hide.

“The Pool Party of Sardanapalus (after Delacroix, Kienholz,” 2017, Sumi ink and collage on paper, Almost 12 feet long.

Eugene Delacroix, “The Death of Sardanapalus,” 1844, Oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris. Kara Walker is, also, an astute student of Art History. In her work, Sardanapalus lies horizontally near the upper left corner, apparently, taking no interest in the orgy of death going on, as he does, lying arm on elbow on a huge red bed in Delacroix’. Her Ed Kienholz reference is a bit harder to track down, but it might be this one.

In “Christ’s Entry into Journalism,” 2017, the ground is, also, gone. The figures hang in the space of the paper, though some sense of perspective remains- as you get closer to the top of the sheet, they get smaller.

“Christ’s Entry into Journalism,” 2017, Sumi ink and collage on paper, 140 x 196 inches.

In this work, Ms. Walker’s figures cut across time, with some appearing to be contemporary. To the right of center, a figure “rocks the mic.” In the lower center is a figure that appears to be a modern riot trooper, in a helmet with face shield and body armor. He appears to have clubs in each hand. Right next to his left hand is what appears to be a black head, in a hoodie, on a platter, being carried by a woman, who looks away, while others nearby watch, some with shock on their face, some pointing to the scene. Just behind them, an extended arm holds and American flag, while above them a figure gives a Nazi salute with one hand while holding a Rebel flag with the other. Up top, a lynched figure hangs from a tree branch while women on either side of him perform acrobatics, with Klansmen standing next to them. In front of that naked black women are attacked by a group of men, while, again, others see what is going on. In the center of the work, the decapitated hoodied head looks straight across at a Civil War soldier pointing a gun at him, across time. Is this 1863? Or 2016?

“Storm Ryder (You Must Hate Black People as Much as You Hate Yourself),” 2017, Oil stick and Sumi ink on paper collaged on linen.

The primacy of Drawing in her work was reinforced with the recent release of one of Ms Walker’s Sketchbooks from 1999, when the Artist was 29, as a book appropriately titled, “MCMXCIX.” It contains Drawings that, in style and subject, visitors to the Sikkema show will immediatley recognize. Interestingly, as Raymond Pettibon does in his shows (the latest concluding on June 24th, shortly before Ms. Walker’s opened), she prefers her larger works be tacked to the walls.

“Future Looks Bright,” 2017, Oil stick and Sumi ink on paper collaged on linen.

Kara Walker may be growing tired of being a “role model,” of being “a featured member of my racial group and/or my gender niche,” (as she says in her Artist’s Statement referenced above). Of course, I can’t imagine being Kara Walker, but I can understand that it gets to be “too much.” I’m not sure, however, what her other choice is. I mean, I’m sure she COULD do something else if she REALLY wanted to. After seeing all the work and passion she put into this show? I guess I’m just not convinced that she really DOES want to do something else. Yet.

Finally…Looking back on 2017… Last year I wrote that I felt Sheena Wagstaff had the best year in NYC Art. She’s had a very good 2017, too. But, this year, I think that The New Museum’s Massimiliano Gioni & Gary Carrion-Murayari. had special years, highlighted by the truly exemplary, and revolutionary, “Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work” retrospective, which they then remounted simultaneously in Maastricht and Moscow. I feel it was “revolutionary” because totaling an unheard of 800 works, including brand new works created by the Artist for this show (some on the very walls of the New Museum), they gave an exhaustive look at Pettibon’s career, yet the show never slowed, never failed to keep and even raise interest. It even included work Pettibon did as a small child that he has now ammended in his own, unique style. Word has recently come that Gary Carrion-Murayari, who kindly answered my questions on the Pettibon Moscow show he co-curated, has also been named as a co-curator for the New Museum’s 2018 Triennial, so he could be ready to have another “big” year. Stay tuned!

The end result is that Massimiliano Gioni, Gary Carrion-Murayari, and the New Museum have served to put the “Big Four”1 Manhattan Museums on notice that, on their 40th anniversary, we are going to have to get used to saying the “Big Five.”

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A Special “Thank You!” to all the Artists who gave me their time and shared their thoughts with me in 2017, and to David White & Gina Guy of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and Gary Carrion-Murayari and Paul Jackson of the New Museum.
“Thank you!” to the Hattan Group and Kitty for research assistance, and to The Strand Bookstore for being open until 10:30pm seven nights a week. R.I.P. Owner, Fred Bass this week.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Heroic Elegy, Op. 36,” (1918), by Ernest Farrar, in honor of the 100th Anniversary of WW1, which was featured in another memorable show, “World War 1 & The Visual Arts” at The Met this year, as a way of honoring it, and all the Artists, and Musicians, lost during it. Shortly after “Heroic Elegy’s” premiere, Second Lieutenant Farrar was ordered to the Western Front. Two days after he arrived there, he was killed at the Battle of Epehy. He was 33. I first heard it while I was driving in Florida on September 11, 2002. The classical station there played it in honor of the first anniversary of 9/11. So taken with it was I that I pulled over and listened to it with my eyes closed, then immediately set about researching it’s composer. Though he wrote other fine works, “Heroic Elegy,” is special. It’s lightning in an 8 minute bottle. As beautiful as it is, there’s a quality, a confidence, in it that seems to promise so much more to come that he, tragically, never got the chance to give us, like the other Artists & Musicians lost far too early in this most senseless of wars.

On The Fence, #17, The Good Riddance” Edition.

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  1. With all due respect to The Frick Collection, who the powers that be that came up with “the Big Four” left out.