maxwangphotos: Kara WalkerA Subtlety, site-specific installation at Domino Sugar Factory, Brooklyn,
maxwangphotos: Kara WalkerA Subtlety, site-specific installation at Domino Sugar Factory, Brooklyn, NY, 2014.“Kara Walker’s ‘A Subtlety,’ aka the ‘Marvelous Sugar Baby,’ which comes with the substantial subtitle of ‘an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant,’ is the renowned artist’s first public artwork.The piece is situated in a highly contested space in Williamsburg: the former Domino Sugar Factory, a site that’s become a lightning rod for discussions about post-industrial urban identity, the moneyed forces of gentrification, and the uneasy relationship of arts patronage and developers. Once one of the neighborhood’s leading employers, by the beginning of this century, when artists, musicians, writers, and urban professionals were slowly beginning to outnumber blue collar workers in Willliamsburg, Domino had become a symbol of the city’s industrial past that was never to return.The Walker installation comes across less as provocative and more like a temple-like tribute to ancestors, relying on its impressive scale (the sphinx measures 35 feet high and 75 feet long) for most of its impact. ”Hrag Vartanian. -- source link