Kara Walker
artist, illustrator, painter, installation artist, sculptor, photographer, performance artist, video artist, visual artist, graphic artist, architectural draftsperson, printmaker, filmmaker
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All Quotes by Kara Walker
“The illusion is that most of my work is simply about past events: a point in history and nothing else.”
“I know that in my family there are histories of violence that are internal family things and that are oftentimes dealt with internally. By internally, I mean inside the family group, but also partly inside ourselves. You know, self-hatred and hostility and rage and this cycle that won't break.”
“Humor's always been the problem of my work, hasn't it? When working, I feel satisfied when I surprise myself. And when I surprise myself, I wind up laughing.”
“I'm fascinated with the stories that we tell. Real histories become fantasies and fairy tales, morality tales and fables. There's something interesting and funny and perverse about the way fairytale sometimes passes for history, for truth.”
“I'm fascinated with the stories that we tell. Real histories become fantasies and fairy tales, morality tales and fables. There's something interesting and funny and perverse about the way fairytale sometimes passes for history, for truth.”
“There is I suppose, historically, this seminal moment in the lives of African Americans where one becomes black. Frantz Fanon and everyone talks about it. There is a moment when you go from subject to object and I guess that was my moment…”
“I think there are many open-ended questions that artists can pose and we can ask communities to feel empowered enough to reply, respond, rebel, and feel amazed by the relentless spiraling of thought and image and action that is the artist's profession.”
“I'm fascinated with the stories that we tell. Real histories become fantasies and fairy tales, morality tales and fables. There's something interesting and funny and perverse about the way fairytale sometimes passes for history, for truth.”
“Expectations on the performance of race and gender are simultaneously high and low, depending on who is looking or asking. I prefer to keep all the options in the air, to try and better understand the conundrum that inequality creates---not just in culture, but internally.”
“There’s no diploma in the world that declares you as an artist. It’s not like becoming a doctor or something. You can declare yourself an artist and then figure out how to be an artist.”