In anticipation of the February 17 opening of the Walker-organized exhibition Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love (exhibition preview Feb. 16), here’s an excerpt from a Q&A frieze did with the artist. Read the entire interview here.
What images keep you company in the space where you work?
A box of Laura Lynn brand “Georgia Crackers” with a picture of a Valdosta, Georgia plantation on the back, complete with Spanish moss-drenched live oaks (and delicious Georgia Cracker snack ideas); a poster of a Pieter Breugel painting, The Netherlandish Proverbs (1559); Greek Chocolate candy and candy display with choco-baby mascot; drawings by my daughter; Porgy and Bess and Ink Spots record sets; and a very funny inkjet print of an illustration of a Christian black family overlaid with a second print of a Black Panther party militant colouring book.
What was the first piece of art that really mattered to you?
Art has always mattered to some degree, because I grew up around artists and art students so it is tough to determine when I first felt really close to one piece. But I think I had a late awakening when I visited a show of 20th-century German art at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta around 1987 and saw a painting by Christian Schad, one of the German Neue Sachlichkeit painters – Agosta, the Winged Man and Rasha, the Black Dove (1929). It is a slightly surreal portrait of a deformed white man and a beautiful black woman – lovers. Some kind of equation was being made that my adolescent mind was flummoxed by. The whole show was so turgid and big – it made quite an impact.
If you could live with only one piece of art what would it be?
The Battle of Atlanta (1886), a cyclorama created by William Wehler’s American Panorama Company studio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is the largest painting in the world.
What is art for?
Figuring it out.
In anticipation of the February 17 opening of the Walker-organized exhibition Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love (exhibition preview Feb. 16), here’s an excerpt from a Q&A frieze did with the artist. Read the entire interview here.
What images keep you company in the space where you work?
A box of Laura Lynn brand “Georgia Crackers” with a picture of a Valdosta, Georgia plantation on the back, complete with Spanish moss-drenched live oaks (and delicious Georgia Cracker snack ideas); a poster of a Pieter Breugel painting, The Netherlandish Proverbs (1559); Greek Chocolate candy and candy display with choco-baby mascot; drawings by my daughter; Porgy and Bess and Ink Spots record sets; and a very funny inkjet print of an illustration of a Christian black family overlaid with a second print of a Black Panther party militant colouring book.
What was the first piece of art that really mattered to you?
Art has always mattered to some degree, because I grew up around artists and art students so it is tough to determine when I first felt really close to one piece. But I think I had a late awakening when I visited a show of 20th-century German art at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta around 1987 and saw a painting by Christian Schad, one of the German Neue Sachlichkeit painters – Agosta, the Winged Man and Rasha, the Black Dove (1929). It is a slightly surreal portrait of a deformed white man and a beautiful black woman – lovers. Some kind of equation was being made that my adolescent mind was flummoxed by. The whole show was so turgid and big – it made quite an impact.
If you could live with only one piece of art what would it be?
The Battle of Atlanta (1886), a cyclorama created by William Wehler’s American Panorama Company studio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is the largest painting in the world.
What is art for?
Figuring it out.
After a long search, we’re pleased to announce the hiring of Peter Eleey as Visual Arts Curator. Currently a curator/producer at Creative Time, he’s organized public art projects including Cao Guo-Qiang’s Light Cycle (a pyrotechnic celebration of Central Park’s 150th anniversary in 2003), Jenny Holzer’s 2004 For New York City, and Doug Aitken’s film sleepwalkers (above), to be projected on the exterior of MoMA starting next Tuesday. He’s also worked with a range of fascinating artists, from interventionist Michael Rakowitz to Chinese artist Song Dong, who was featured in our exhibition How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age. He joins us officially on March 26. The New York Times writes that Nato Thompson, curator at MASSMoCA, will fill his shoes at Creative Time.
Peter has agreed to do a Q&A on his past work and what he hopes to do at the Walker, to be published right here in the coming weeks.
[Press release]