The Work of Contemporary Artists Kara Walker And Hand Willis Thomas Come Together in Installation at the BMA

BALTIMORE, MD (May 30, 2017)—The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents two compelling works that explore the legacy of slavery in America in Black Box: Kara Walker & Hank Willis Thomas. On view June 28, 2017– March 18, 2018, the installation brings together Kara Walker’s Salvation, one of the most significant works in the BMA’s contemporary collection, and Hank Willis Thomas’ And I Can’t Run, a recent promised gift to the museum.

“These powerful pieces by Walker and Thomas are among the important works in the BMA’s collection that confront us with the traumatic and tragic history of race in America and inspire us to make critical changes as we go forward,” said Kristen Hileman, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. “One of the strengths of the museum’s contemporary collection are works like these that take a forceful position on the critical issues of our times.”

Walker’s Salvation (2000) is a complex consideration of African American and female identity within the tragic history of American slavery. The central silhouetted female figure is characteristic of the artist’s work, which collides racial stereotypes and violent scenes with the genteel tradition of cut paper silhouettes. The art depicts a figure gasping, perhaps drowning, in a swamp. Its title, Salvation, could suggest the woman has taken to the water to escape her enslavement. A grim possibility is that a death by drowning offers the only salvation from the horrors she has experienced. The foreboding and haunting scene is heightened through dim lighting and shadowy layers of imagery generated by an overhead projector.

Light is also critical to understanding the imagery of Thomas’ And I Can’t Run (2013). Initially appearing as an almost illegible group of white-on-white forms on a rectangular field, a chilling photographic image of a black man shackled before aggressive white onlookers emerges once the work is photographed with a cell phone using a flash.

Where Walker returns to the centuries-old silhouette craft to examine the legacy of slavery in American, Thomas brings contemporary technology to the subject. Both artists, however, find contrasts of light and dark, white and black, and obscurity and revelation to be powerful metaphors for horrific violence and racial inequality in the United States.

Black Box: Kara Walker & Hank Willis Thomas is curated by Kristen Hileman, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art.

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About the Baltimore Museum of Art

Founded in 1914, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) inspires people of all ages and backgrounds through exhibitions, programs, and collections that tell an expansive story of art—challenging long-held narratives and embracing new voices. Our outstanding collection of more than 97,000 objects spans many eras and cultures and includes the world’s largest public holding of works by Henri Matisse; one of the nation’s finest collections of prints, drawings, and photographs; and a rapidly growing number of works by contemporary artists of diverse backgrounds. The museum is also distinguished by a neoclassical building designed by American architect John Russell Pope and two beautifully landscaped gardens featuring an array of modern and contemporary sculpture. The BMA is located three miles north of the Inner Harbor, adjacent to the main campus of Johns Hopkins University, and has a community branch at Lexington Market. General admission is free so that everyone can enjoy the power of art.