Art. Kara Walker Examines Confederate Imagery and Offers a Biting Critique of The Town She Once Called Home.

Kara Walker


Artist Kara Walker’s latest exhibition, “Go to Hell or Atlanta, Whichever Comes First,” is a biting critique of Stone Mountain, Georgia, the town she once called home, and the confederate imagery that permeates the area’s history.

Walker, who moved to Atlanta at the age of 13, after living in Stockton, California tells The Guardian about her inspiration for the show,

I was talking about confederate emblems to a friend, a photographer. This has been a big topic of conversation since the nine African American churchgoers were shot in South Carolina and I happened to mention that there is this mountain that I grew up in the shadow of, kind of literally. The mountain was claimed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1915 as their spiritual birthplace and the carving was proposed in 1916. It was finally completed in 1972. So we came down to photograph it, and this show arose out of that.

“Go to Hell or Atlanta, Whichever Comes First” is a marked shift in tone from Walker’s last major exhibition “A Subtlety, or The Marvelous Sugar Baby”, in both scale and medium.

This time around Walker settles into the biting, sarcastic, yet darkly humorous work that she’s known for.

“Go to Hell or Atlanta, Whichever Comes First” is currently on view from now until November 7, 2015 at Victoria Miro Gallery in London.