Join us for the opening day of the Weisman Art Museum's fall exhibition, Kara Walker: Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated). The event features a variety of community-centered activities and activations: papercut self-guided art making in Open Studio; a thoughtfully designed reading and reflection space; a BIPOC-developed and led shadow puppetry performance by Monkeybear's Harmolodic Workshop; and, a keynote lecture on the use of artificial intelligence to depict speculative African American historical life by Kara Walker and Winslow Homer scholar, Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw. Light snacks and refreshments will be provided throughout the day. 

Schedule of Events

Kara Walker: Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), opens at 11am

Organized by the New Britain Museum of American Art and The Museum Box, Kara Walker: Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) features 15 works on paper by Kara Walker. In 2005, Walker worked in collaboration with the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies in New York to produce Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), a portfolio of 15 prints that considers experiences of racism toward African Americans that were absent or only alluded to in historical representations of the Civil War. Each print in the portfolio is an enlargement of a woodcut plate from Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Chicago, 1862), overlaid with Walker’s silkscreen cutout figures rendered in solid black silhouette. She surfaces race and gender-based biases, highlights profound sociopolitical inequalities, and brings to the fore a silenced history of violence that complicate the initial narrative. This exhibition constitutes an important opportunity to revisit the history of the antebellum South and the ensuing Civil War through the contemporary lenses of race, slavery, gender, and politics.

The show includes a reading a reflection space to encourage gallery attendees to engage with the content of the exhibition in a manner that feels restorative, respectful, and contemplative. 
 

Performance by Monkeybear's Harmolodic Workshop 1PM 

Monkeybear’s Harmolodic Workshop supports Native, Black, and IPOC in developing creative and technical skills in contemporary puppetry through workshops and developmental programs. This special performance is developed specifically in response to the exhibition, Kara Walker: Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated). Monkeybear alumni Erica Warren, Johnathan Boyd, Luis Lopez, and Tim Blighton will perform three shadow puppetry shows developed in conversation with the art of Kara Walker. Sound design is by Monkeybear alum Atim Opoka. After the performance there will be a brief artist talk back, offering insights into the creative process and the themes explored in their work.

Keynote Lecture 3:30PM

"Kara Walker, Winslow Homer, Blackness, and AI"

The keynote lecture, given by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, considers the ongoing engagement with Harper’s Weekly illustrations made by Winslow Homer and other artists during the Civil War by contemporary artists, like Kara Walker, who have sought to transform them, and by everyday art lovers who search for historical images of African Americans to add to their home decor. It will explore what insight these contested historical images might give us into the desires of contemporary art audiences in a world in which artificial intelligence is radically altering the terrain of art creation and consumption.