I'll Be a Monkey's Uncle

Kara Walker

Kara Walker's work draws from the legacy of slavery in America and the racial stereotypes in the antebellum South. Her hand-cut silhouettes are inspired by the traditional Victorian medium of the eighteenth-century, in which she recognizes "this very physical displacement (of African Americans): the paradox of removing a form from a blank surface that in turn creates a black hole. I was struck by the irony of so many of my concerns being addressed: blank/black, hole/whole, shadow/substance." This print, depicting a caricatured black child with a dressed monkey alludes to a long history of horrific stereotypes in popular literature and visual culture. It is also rife with sexual allusions, heightening its disturbing effect.
Artist
Date of Birth
(b. 1969)
Date
1996
Medium
Lithograph on paper
Dimensions
39 1/2 x 34 3/4 in. (100.33 x 88.265 cm.)
Accession #
2011.1.125
Credit Line
Art by Women Collection, Gift of Linda Lee Alter
Category