Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick
Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA
March 9 – June 11, 2023
Installation view of Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick, 2023, Virginia MOCA, Virginia Beach, VA. Photo by Echard Wheeler.
Virginia MOCA presents Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick, a solo survey exhibition featuring more than 80 works by Walker from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and the Schnitzer Family Foundation. A leading artist of her generation, Kara Walker (b. 1969) works in a range of mediums, including prints, drawings, paintings, sculpture, film, and the large-scale silhouette cutouts for which she is perhaps most recognized. Her powerful and provocative images employ contradictions to critique the painful legacies of slavery, sexism, violence, imperialism, and other power structures, including those in the history and hierarchies of art and contemporary culture.
This exhibition originated at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, TN, and was co-curated by former Frist Art Museum executive director and CEO Dr. Susan H. Edwards and poet Ciona Rouse. In addition to her curatorial responsibilities, Rouse composed original poems inspired by Walker’s works, which live inside the exhibition. At Virginia MOCA, Cut to the Quick will be guest curated by Rouse with Virginia MOCA Senior Curator Heather Hakimzadeh. Some highlights of the exhibition are the complete Emancipation Approximation series and images from the Porgy & Bess series. Walker conducts extensive research in history, literature, art history, and popular culture. Her work is intentionally unsentimental and ambiguous.
Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick is on view at Virginia MOCA through June 11. To learn more, click here.