A Subtlety
…or the marvellous sugar baby
The Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn is host to a very different exhibition this summer. The eloquently titled piece A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby 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 on until the 6th of July, and you can get all the details from Walker’s site here.
Fortunately for those of us from abroad, lovely NYC resident Margaret Schmitz made the trek for us. MJ works as a Fine Art Claims Specialist for the Haven Art Group, and you can follow her on twitter here. Here is what she had to say about her experience at the Sugar Factory:
I wouldn’t call Kara Walker’s A Subtlety an exhibition. I would call it more of an experience, which starts with waiting in the sun for at least an hour prior to being let through an imposing gate and into a walled enclosure beyond. Once through, the brick refinery loomed ahead of us with gravel fields stretching to our right, left and extending to the road.
Compared to the hot, noisy street where we had lined up, the open yard looked like a post apocalyptic landscape from a film and could have been cliche if it hadn’t been so uterly silent. Amongst the ruin, decay and sense of abandon, Walker’s own words are pasted to the side of the refinery’s fortress like exterior: “’A Subtelty’ or the Marvelous Sugar Baby 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”
I don’t know about anyone else’s interpretation, but after reading these words I immediately felt shameful for complaining about the heat and long wait. The “artisans” mentioned are 19th Century Jamaican slaves who refined sugar cane for the United States through blood, sweat, and unconscionable hardship. When we entered the building itself the smell of sugar was potent, and even left a sticky presence in the air. Thick molasses still could be found still dripping down its walls.
A “pure” white sugar sphinx presides at the further end of the long warehouse. Scattered about her are children heaving heavy baskets that, upon a closer look, contain remnants of other children, all of which is made entirely out of sculpted and torched raw sugar. The sculptures on a technical level are lovely, fleshy and curvaceous.
Varying textures and levels of translucency further aid spectators to dance on the fence between horror and beauty. This is something that is so indicative of Walker’s work, what seems like innocent, sweet subject matter is in fact a definition of putrid reality and carries with it a message that will run to your core.
Loved every second of it!
