The Emancipation Approximation (Scene #18), 1999 – 2000;
Screen print; 44 x 34 in.; Edition of 20
Collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
© 2016 Kara Walker

From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation

Opening Reception: Wednesday, February 1, 5 – 7 p.m.
Talk by Collector Jordan Schnitzer

The University Museum of Contemporary Art (UMCA) at UMass Amherst is proud to present Emancipating the Past: Kara Walker’s Tales of Slavery and Power .

Kara Walker has become one of the most widely-known and controversial artists working today. Exploring the painful history of American race relations through large-scale silhouette installations, Walker’s work transforms historical materials, literary sources and popular culture, challenging us to access buried emotions about our nation’s past. In her hands, the medium of silhouette becomes a tool for examining the traumatic legacy  of slavery.

This exhibition brings together 60 works in a variety of mediums, from printmaking  (such as lithograph, etching with aquatint, photogravure, linocut, and screen-print), to wall murals, metal sculpture and shadow puppetry. The exhibition was curated by Jessi  Di Tillio, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon. All works in this exhibition come from the Portland, Oregon-based collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation.

Collector Jordan Schnitzer has said, “Kara Walker is one of the most important artists in our collection. Her art needs to be seen and the themes need to be examined. No artist today does a better job of forcing the viewers to deal with stereotypes, gender, and race.”

The exhibition includes three narrative series — The Emancipation Approximation  (1999–2000),  Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War: Annotated  (2005), and  An Unpeopled Land in Uncharted Waters  (2010) — along with numerous individual works that underline Walker's use of Antebellum and Reconstruction-era imagery and themes. Her narratives unfold in elaborate tableaux that tackle issues of race, slavery, sexuality, identity, and power. The works, which are inventive and painful but also satirical and humorous, were selected for the exhibition to display the range of approaches Walker uses to explore the legacy of slavery.

Walker explained, “One theme in my artwork is the idea that a Black subject in the present tense is a container for specific pathologies from the past and is continually growing and feeding off those maladies....” By looking carefully at a selection of Walker’s projects in different media, this exhibition emphasizes the interface between technique and concept in her work. Walker’s use of historically inflected techniques investigates the question: “How is contemporary identity shaped and affected by the imagery from the past ?”
 

Educational Resources

Jordan Schnitzer with UMCA staff	Jordan Schnitzer speaks to an overflow crowd	Willie Hill, Jordan Schnitzer, Kumble Subbaswamy	Jordan Schnitzer w/ UMCA docents Emily Cooper, Elizabeth Kapp, and Caroline Riley

Black and White
Emancipating the Past
How to Make Your Own Silhouette Portrait Presentation
Hype and Hypersexuality
Kara Walker Reading Black Through White
Kara Walker Syllabus
Lesson Kara Walker and DuBois.
Lessonplan Kara Walker and Harriet Jacobs Slave Girl
Lessonplan Silhouettes and Kara Walker
Lynching in America Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror
Morgan Some Could Suckle Over Their Shoulder
Prison Conditions
White Privilege

In the Media

Mass Live  -- 1/31/2017
UMass Daily Collegian -- 2/2/2017
Boston Globe -- 3/23/2017 --   PDF

Events

 February and March Events

Opening Reception

Wednesday, February 1, 5‒7 p.m.
Remarks by Collector Jordan Schnitzer at 6 p.m.

Public Tour of the Exhibition

Thursday, Feb. 2, 6 p.m

Tour in collaboration with Amherst Arts Night Plus. UMCA open until 8 p.m.

Docent Tours

Saturday, Feb. 4, 3 p.m and Sunday, Feb. 5, 3 p.m

So Now I’m Looking Dead at You, What Are You Gonna Do? Kara Walker’s Contemporary Visuality

Tom Adams / Reelife

Tuesday, Feb. 7, 4:30 p.m.
Lecture on the art of Kara Walker by Kelli Morgan, the Winston and Carolyn Lowe Curatorial Fellow at the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts and Ph.D. candidate at UMass Amherst. Morgan specialization is in African American women’s art. She will discuss how Kara Walker’s art explores concepts of Black women’s self-making, autonomy, subjectivity, and personal empowerment through visual expression. Commonwealth Honors College Events Hall, Room 160. Following the lecture, Morgan will lead a tour of the exhibition at the UMCA.

Docent Tours

Saturday, February 11, 3 p.m, Sunday, February 12, 3 p.m. 
Saturday, February 18, 3 p.m., Sunday, February 19, 3 p.m.

Twenty-third Annual Du Bois Lecture

Tom Adams / Reelife

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 4‒6 p.m.
"Viewing the Past Through the Eyes of the Present: A Dialogue around the Work of Kara Walker.” With Barbara Krauthamer (History, Associate Dean of Graduate School), UMass; Traci Parker (Afro-American Studies, UMass); and Elizabeth Pryor (History, Smith College). Co-sponsored by the UMass W.E.B. Du Bois Center. Commonwealth Honors College Events Hall, Room 160.

Docent Tours

Saturday, February 25, 3 p.m., Sunday, February 26, 3 p.m.

The Forgotten History: Slaves in New England

Tom Adams / Reelife

Wednesday, March 1, 4:30 p.m.
Panel Discussion led by Gretchen Gerzina (Dean of the Commonwealth Honors College). Commonwealth Honors College Events Hall, Room 160.

Public Tour of the Exhibition

Thursday, March 2, 6 p.m

Tour in collaboration with Amherst Arts Night Plus. UMCA open until 8 p.m.

Exhibition Opens for Artist-in-Residence Caitlin Cherry’s printmaking project

Thursday, March 23
Exhibition Opens for Artist-in-Residence Caitlin Cherry’s printmaking project. Cherry was nominated by Kara Walker for the first printmaking residency collaboration between UMCA and UMass Art Department.

Docent Tours

Saturday, March 25, 3 p.m., Sunday, March 26, 3 p.m.

Caitlin Cherry: Artist Reception and Talk

Wednesday, March 29, 5‒7 p.m.

Black Aesthetics Symposium

Sat. ‒ Sun., March 31– April 1, 9 a.m.‒6 p.m.
Black Aesthetics Symposium, organized by Hampshire College Philosophy Prof. Monique Roelofs. This symposium explores the transdisciplinary, aesthetic and social-political issues raised in a number of important recent texts on Black aesthetics reflecting a variety of disciplines — African-American studies, comparative literature, philosophy, cultural studies, etc. — and a range of art mediums—poetry, music, visual arts, architecture, and popular culture. (UMass Artist-in-Residence Caitlin Cherry participates as a panelist). Franklin Patterson Hall, Hampshire College. See Hampshire College website for details: www.hampshire.edu.

Docent Tours

Redrawing Identity

Monday, April 3, 4‒5:30 p.m.
Panel Discussion moderated by Karen Kurczynski (Art History, UMass). This panel will discuss drawing’s unique potential as manifested in Kara Walker’s work, as well as that of other contemporary artists who use drawing to reframe social identity as it intersects directly with politics. With Kalia Brooks, (Art, NYU); Christine Ho (Art History, UMass); Daniel Kojo-Schrade (Art, Hampshire College); and Nico Vicario (Art History, Amherst College). Commonwealth Honors College Events Hall, Room 160.

Public Tour of the Exhibition

Thursday, April 6, 6 p.m

Tour in collaboration with Amherst Arts Night Plus. UMCA open until 8 p.m.

Docent Tours

Daughters of the Dust

Docent Tours

She Speaks / They Speak
Narrative of Oppression and Triumph, Celebrating the Voices of Women of Color

Friday, April 28, 7:30 p.m., Rand Theater, UMass Fine Arts Center

Presented by the Women of Color Leadership Network at the Center for Women & Community and the University Museum of Contemporary Art.

We invite women of color to celebrate their diverse and dynamic narratives through storytelling.