KARA WALKER: PRINCE MCVEIGH AND THE TURNER BLASPHEMIES
09.21.23 - 12.03.23
In the University’s Lucille M. and Richard F. X. Spagnuolo Art Gallery, Kara Walker: Prince McVeigh and the Turner Blasphemies subverts and reframes the visual presentation of modern American myth-making.
This work from 2021 is a 12-minute stop-motion animation where Walker’s cut-paper silhouettes reenact several of the most gruesome and infamous acts of white supremacist violence in the country’s recent history, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh and the 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr. Inspired by the saturation of white supremacist rhetoric within the mainstream political discourse of the past five years, the film’s creation is prescient in relation to the January 6, 2020 insurrection on the US capitol. Prince McVeigh and the Turner Blasphemies is an unflinching interrogation of how radical figures and ideologies ingratiate themselves within the national consciousness.
Kara Walker, Prince McVeigh and the Turner Blasphemies, 2021.
Exhibition organized by Katie Geha for the Athenaeum, the University of Georgia.
Video (color, audio)on DVD and digital beta master, 12 min.
Courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York; Sprüth Magers, Berlin.