Kara Walker: Cut it Out

GUT IT OUT H a m za W alker Which of us has overcome his past? And the past of a Negro is blood dripping down through the leaves, gouged out eyeballs, the sex torn from the socket and severed with a knife. But this past is not special to the Negro. The horror is also the past, and the everlasting potential, or temptation, of the human race. If we do not know this, it seems to me, we know nothing about ourselves, nothing about each other; to have accepted this is also to have found a source of strength - source of all our power. But one must first accept this paradox.with joy. fames Baldwin 108 • Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art Untitled, 1998, Gouache and pencil on paper, 58 x 101 inches 11 was from a personal perspective that lames Baldwin I arrived at the Question, what does it mean to be human. I As a black gay man who took pride in his skill as a polemicist, Baldwin felt obliged, if not entitled, to address the Question of humanity. He immediately understood that the Question was accountable to race and sexuality, making the stakes at once both personal and social. The Question of humanity, however, allowed Baldwin to consider the past outside of an historical context. Not onjy do the words past, potential, and temptation establish a trajectory that transcends history, they also paint a dark picture of human nature by calling into Question the idea of moral progress. But Baldwin's comment was far more than a condemnation of this country's inability to come to terms with its historical underbelly of racial violence. Implicit in his suspicion of moral progress was a critioue of the Question. Baldwin knew Fall/ Winter 2000 Nka- 109 that the use of the word human was rhetorical in that the Question of humanity could never yield answers universal in scope. It is a Question whose answer ultimately depends on who is doing the asking and what period is under examination. In short, Baldwin understood that the Question would always falter before history, making it a paradox rather than an inquiry capable of resolution. In light of this Quote from Baldwin, one could without reservation characterize Kara Walker's imagination as joyful. That is a scary thought for an artist whose work often includes sexually explicit images which at their most harrowing have depicted acts of pedophilia and bestiality. As black paper cut outs adhered directly to the white walls of the gallery, Walker's work is put forth in no uncertain terms. Her world is Quite frankly black and white. In fact, it is shameless. The work's refusal to acknowledge shame when dealing with issues of race and desire set within the context of slavery, allows Walker to challenge, indeed taunt, our individual and collective historical imaginations. From Baldwin's generation to Walker's, the issue as to how to come to terms with a painful past persists. How does one write oneself into a painful history without first inquiring into the human capacity for lust, disgust, and violence? And if one is African-American, as is Walker, where does one begin this task amidst the pickaninnies, sambos, mammies, mandingos, and mulatto slave mistresses depicted on sought after flotsam and jetsom hiding in the back of antique stores, bric-a-brac that goes by the name of bygone Americana? As bizarre, beautiful or violent as her imagery may be, Walker understands that an historical imagination is a prerequisite for genuine ownership of the past. And if the task of writing oneself into history is conducted at the level of Baldwin's paradox of what it means to be human, then this task must take into account pain, parody, pleasure, poetry and ultimately the perverse. Although her cutouts have been likened to the literature of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Toni Cade Bambara, Walker's work actually shares more in common with dimestore historical romances that use the antebellum as a backdrop. With human chattel as part of the historical mise-en-scene, it begs to be asked to what extent a romance could follow conventions of decency before the...