Kara Walker’s œuvre scrutinises themes of race, gender, sexuality and violence, showcasing a profound exploration of societal complexities and positioning her as a preeminent figure among contemporary American artists. At Sprüth Magers, Berlin, Walker debuts all-new cutout collages in vibrant ink and watercolour. Presented on a grand scale akin to history paintings, these works build upon her iconic monochromatic silhouettes by harnessing the power of formal composition, texture and colour. The show is completed by new pastels that reimagine traditional genres and several arresting watercolour drawings.

She employs colourful cut-paper silhouettes, skilfully blending loose, expressive washes of colour with sharply delineated forms to craft scenes that depict America’s violent historic and recent past, prompting critical reflection on their impact on contemporary realities.

In artworks such as Tituba’s Handmaidens (2025), she commandeers historic imagery and art history—drawing on references from the Salem witch trials as well as works by John Singer Sargent and Diego Velázquez—and transforms these elements into incisive commentary that critiques prevailing narratives born from a pivotal moment when the nation’s foundational contradictions between freedom and oppression were actively being rewritten and whitewashed for popular consumption.

The erosion of democracy in real time permeates many of the exhibition’s artworks. The monumental cut-paper diptych Inaugural Fantasia (2025) presents a visual maelstrom of entangled naked bodies, some of which resemble political figures. The work functions as a critique of the fetishisation of political and military power, suggesting an almost sexual obsession with authority and dominance over feminised bodies that accompanies democratic decline.

The exhibition includes pastels on paper that reimagine vanitas still lifes through a contemporary lens. Vanitas #7 (2025) presents a wicker basket brimming with chard, radishes and asparagus, interspersed with severed feet, a hand and two heads among the root vegetables. Walker deliberately subverts the colonial luxury displayed in the traditional vanitas of the Dutch Golden Age and Spanish bodegones, confronting viewers with the cost of Western prosperity to Black life, while pointedly suggesting that those who have borne this exploitation need no reminder of death—it has been a pervasive presence.

In this exhibition, Walker’s work serves as both scalpel and mirror, dissecting the myths that sustain American violence while compelling viewers to confront their own implication in the construction of such narratives. By creating what can be described as a sort of eccentric history museum, Walker positions herself as a surreptitious instigator who appropriates the visual languages that have long legitimised Western culture—the vast scale of history painting and the authority of museum display. Through her masterful use of historical imagery and unflinching examination of power, she demonstrates that in times of widespread deception, the artist’s most vital role may be to make visible what others would render invisible, and to tell the truths that fantasy seeks to obscure.