Kara Walker unveils never-before-seen drawings grappling with race, gender, and violence

Kara Walker has shown her silhouetted depictions of plantation life in most of the world’s leading institutions. Her monumental sculptures have made the headlines from New York to London. Now, Kunstmuseum Basel is revealing a lesser-known aspect of Walker’s prolific creative output: her drawings. ‘Kara Walker: A Black Hole Is Everything a Star Longs to Be’ gathers over 600 drawings executed over the last twenty-eight years. Some are sketches for existing projects; others, just ideas jotted down. Others, still, are elaborate compositions, often featuring Barack Obama as an embattled hero – or a saint. Issues of race, gender, violence, and the monstrous archetypes black women have been reduced to, return again and again. Almost none of these pieces have ever been exhibited before.‘These drawings represent for me this attempt to go back in time,’ Walker says, ‘in the hope of asking others to help me.’Shot in her New York studio and at Kunstmuseum Basel, this exceptional episode of ‘Meet the artists sheds light on one of the most intimate facets of the artists oeuvre.

‘Kara Walker: A Black Hole is Everything a Star Longs to Be,’ June 5 - September 26, 2021, Kunstmuseum Basel, Neubau.

Kara Walker is represented by Sikkema Jenkins & Co. (New York City) and Sprüth Magers (Berlin, London, Los Angeles).