Widely acknowledged as one of the most complex contemporary American painters of her generation, Kara Walker’s works offer an examination of history, power, race, desire, illuminating representations of violence and the ongoing process of American racial formation.

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Carpetbaggage, 2019
Graphite on paper
66.4 × 101.6 cm
26 1/8 × 40 inches

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Carpetbaggage, 2019
Graphite on paper
66.4 × 101.6 cm
26 1/8 × 40 inches

Kara Walker
Carpetbaggage, 2019
Graphite on paper
66.4 × 101.6 cm
26 1/8 × 40 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Carpetbaggage, 2019 (detail)

Kara Walker
Carpetbaggage, 2019 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Carpetbaggage, 2019 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Carpetbaggage, 2019 (scale image)

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Her exhibition at Sprüth Magers, London, Ring Around the Rosy, brings into focus the breadth of her drawing practice, which is concurrently explored in depth in her touring museum exhibition, A Black Hole is Everything a Star Longs to Be, on view at the De Pont Museum in Tilburg, The Netherlands, through July 24.

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
A Black Hole Is Everything a Star Longs to Be
Installation view, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, 2022
Photo: Eddo Hartmann

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
A Black Hole Is Everything a Star Longs to Be
Installation view, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, 2022
Photo: Eddo Hartmann

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
A Black Hole Is Everything a Star Longs to Be
Installation view, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, 2022
Photo: Eddo Hartmann

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
A Black Hole Is Everything a Star Longs to Be
Installation view, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, 2022
Photo: Eddo Hartmann

Details
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Her exhibition at Sprüth Magers, London, Ring Around the Rosy, brings into focus the breadth of her drawing practice, which is concurrently explored in depth in her touring museum exhibition, A Black Hole is Everything a Star Longs to Be, on view at the De Pont Museum in Tilburg, The Netherlands, through July 24.

Throughout her career, paper has been central to Walker’s practice, from the cut silhouettes that brought her early renown, to her small-scale drawing series and now monumentally scaled compositions. Drawing offers the artist a place to operate and develop in a transformative medium outside the heavily European male dominated discourse on painting.

 

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

 

In Ring Around the Rosy, Walker’s dynamic inquiry into gender, identity, and sexuality is brought into poignant, suspended meditation across drawings of various scales; some produced as recently as this past year further elucidate the timeliness of her perspective on the present. Tracing the historical lineages of oppression and subjugation across centuries and continents, her work questions and confronts present-day matrices of race, power, and desire in the United States.

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Desolate Landscape, 2018
Graphite, ink and shell white on paper
38.1 × 55.9 cm
15 × 22 inches

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Desolate Landscape, 2018
Graphite, ink and shell white on paper
38.1 × 55.9 cm
15 × 22 inches

Kara Walker
Desolate Landscape, 2018
Graphite, ink and shell white on paper
38.1 × 55.9 cm
15 × 22 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Desolate Landscape, 2018 (detail)

Kara Walker
Desolate Landscape, 2018 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Desolate Landscape, 2018 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Desolate Landscape, 2018 (scale image)

Details
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In Ring Around the Rosy, Walker’s dynamic inquiry into gender, identity, and sexuality is brought into poignant, suspended meditation across drawings of various scales; some produced as recently as this past year further elucidate the timeliness of her perspective on the present. Tracing the historical lineages of oppression and subjugation across centuries and continents, her work questions and confronts present-day matrices of race, power, and desire in the United States.

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Miss Rona's Hello, 2020
Cut paper
40.6 × 33 cm
16 × 13 inches

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Your Secret Pain, 2021
Graphite, ink and shell white on paper
57.1 × 76.2 cm
22 1/2 × 30 inches

More views
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Omicron Variations, 2022
Ink on paper
188 × 200.7 cm
74 × 79 inches

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Here, Walker presents a series of works which touch on the darker themes so prescient/critical in our current socio-cultural/political climate with titles such as Ms Rona’s Hello and The Omicron Variations. An acerbic nod to the past two years of the pandemic still felt by most, they are exemplary of the artist’s candidly dark humour/comedy.

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Miss Rona's Hello, 2020
Cut paper
40.6 × 33 cm
16 × 13 inches

Kara Walker
Miss Rona's Hello, 2020
Cut paper
40.6 × 33 cm
16 × 13 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Miss Rona's Hello, 2020 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Miss Rona's Hello, 2020 (scale image)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Your Secret Pain, 2021
Graphite, ink and shell white on paper
57.1 × 76.2 cm
22 1/2 × 30 inches

Kara Walker
Your Secret Pain, 2021
Graphite, ink and shell white on paper
57.1 × 76.2 cm
22 1/2 × 30 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Your Secret Pain, 2021 (detail)

Kara Walker
Your Secret Pain, 2021 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Your Secret Pain, 2021 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Your Secret Pain, 2021 (scale image)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Omicron Variations, 2022
Ink on paper
188 × 200.7 cm
74 × 79 inches

Kara Walker
The Omicron Variations, 2022
Ink on paper
188 × 200.7 cm
74 × 79 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Omicron Variations, 2022 (detail)

Kara Walker
The Omicron Variations, 2022 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Omicron Variations, 2022 (scale image)

Kara Walker
The Omicron Variations, 2022 (scale image)

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Here, Walker presents a series of works which touch on the darker themes so prescient/critical in our current socio-cultural/political climate with titles such as Ms Rona’s Hello and The Omicron Variations. An acerbic nod to the past two years of the pandemic still felt by most, they are exemplary of the artist’s candidly dark humour/comedy.

The title of the exhibition itself is taken from the lyrics of the children’s game, “Ring around the Rosy” which is speculated to have been about the Plague, which repeatedly swept through Europe from 14th to 17th centuries, killing an estimated 75-200 million people. The eponymous drawing Ring Around the Rosy/Usher to the House of the Fall (2021) alludes to Edgar Allen Poe’s 1839 Gothic short story The Fall of the House of Usher, as well as Matisse, Blake and Bernt Notke’s medieval Danse Macabre.

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Ring Around the Rosy / Usher to the House of the Fall, 2021
Ink and shell white on paper
57.2 × 74.6 cm
22 1/2 × 29 3/8 inches

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Ring Around the Rosy / Usher to the House of the Fall, 2021
Ink and shell white on paper
57.2 × 74.6 cm
22 1/2 × 29 3/8 inches

Kara Walker
Ring Around the Rosy / Usher to the House of the Fall, 2021
Ink and shell white on paper
57.2 × 74.6 cm
22 1/2 × 29 3/8 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Ring Around the Rosy / Usher to the House of the Fall, 2021 (detail)

Kara Walker
Ring Around the Rosy / Usher to the House of the Fall, 2021 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Ring Around the Rosy / Usher to the House of the Fall, 2021 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Ring Around the Rosy / Usher to the House of the Fall, 2021 (scale image)

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The title of the exhibition itself is taken from the lyrics of the children’s game, “Ring around the Rosy” which is speculated to have been about the Plague, which repeatedly swept through Europe from 14th to 17th centuries, killing an estimated 75-200 million people. The eponymous drawing Ring Around the Rosy/Usher to the House of the Fall (2021) alludes to Edgar Allen Poe’s 1839 Gothic short story The Fall of the House of Usher, as well as Matisse, Blake and Bernt Notke’s medieval Danse Macabre.

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Colonists Day of Judgement, 2020
Walnut ink, shell white, pen, ink and watercolor on paper
66 × 101.6 cm
26 × 40 inches

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Colonists Day of Judgement, 2020
Walnut ink, shell white, pen, ink and watercolor on paper
66 × 101.6 cm
26 × 40 inches

Kara Walker
The Colonists Day of Judgement, 2020
Walnut ink, shell white, pen, ink and watercolor on paper
66 × 101.6 cm
26 × 40 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Colonists Day of Judgement, 2020 (scale image)

Kara Walker
The Colonists Day of Judgement, 2020 (scale image)

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

 

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Title Unknown, 2020
Graphite and ink on paper
38.1 × 56.5 cm
15 × 22 1/4 inches

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Top Knot on Bottom, 2022
Graphite on paper
76.2 × 56.5 cm
32 × 24 3/8 inches

More views
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Winter Spirits in Summer, 2021
Graphite, watercolor and shell white on paper
76.2 × 55.9 cm
30 × 22 inches

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Kara Walker’s spatial arrangements are reminiscent of the compositions of cycloramas — the circular panoramic paintings which allowed viewers to experience events in a fully immersive manner. Many of the drawings in the exhibitions are predicated on circular motives and indicate the cycle of racial inequality that continues to play itself out in history.

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Title Unknown, 2020
Graphite and ink on paper
38.1 × 56.5 cm
15 × 22 1/4 inches

Kara Walker
Title Unknown, 2020
Graphite and ink on paper
38.1 × 56.5 cm
15 × 22 1/4 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Title Unknown, 2020 (detail)

Kara Walker
Title Unknown, 2020 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Title Unknown, 2020 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Title Unknown, 2020 (scale image)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Top Knot on Bottom, 2022
Graphite on paper
76.2 × 56.5 cm
32 × 24 3/8 inches

Kara Walker
Top Knot on Bottom, 2022
Graphite on paper
76.2 × 56.5 cm
32 × 24 3/8 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Top Knot on Bottom, 2022 (detail)

Kara Walker
Top Knot on Bottom, 2022 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Top Knot on Bottom, 2022 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Top Knot on Bottom, 2022 (scale image)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Winter Spirits in Summer, 2021
Graphite, watercolor and shell white on paper
76.2 × 55.9 cm
30 × 22 inches

Kara Walker
Winter Spirits in Summer, 2021
Graphite, watercolor and shell white on paper
76.2 × 55.9 cm
30 × 22 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Winter Spirits in Summer, 2021 (detail)

Kara Walker
Winter Spirits in Summer, 2021 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Winter Spirits in Summer, 2021 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Winter Spirits in Summer, 2021 (scale image)

Details
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Kara Walker’s spatial arrangements are reminiscent of the compositions of cycloramas — the circular panoramic paintings which allowed viewers to experience events in a fully immersive manner. Many of the drawings in the exhibitions are predicated on circular motives and indicate the cycle of racial inequality that continues to play itself out in history.

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Foot the Bill, 2018
Graphite, graphite putty, pastel, colored pencil on paper
2 parts: 27.9 × 76.2 cm overall
2 parts: 11 × 30 inches overall

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Foot the Bill, 2018
Graphite, graphite putty, pastel, colored pencil on paper
2 parts: 27.9 × 76.2 cm overall
2 parts: 11 × 30 inches overall

Kara Walker
Foot the Bill, 2018
Graphite, graphite putty, pastel, colored pencil on paper
2 parts: 27.9 × 76.2 cm overall
2 parts: 11 × 30 inches overall

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Foot the Bill, 2018 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Foot the Bill, 2018 (scale image)

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Her storytelling is relentless and the vignettes lend themselves well to creating these pictorial narratives. With contorted bodies, yonic and phallic imagery, sometimes macabare, tragicomic, or vaudevillian, Walker creates subversive implied narratives filled with the familiar content from her cut silhouettes.

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Far Flung, 2020
Ink and shell white on paper
76.2 × 55.9 cm
30 × 22 inches

More views
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Untitled, 2021
Graphite and ink on paper
50.8 × 66 cm
20 × 26 inches

More views
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Bodysnatcher, 2021
Graphite and watercolor on paper
50.2 × 66 cm
19 3/4 × 26 inches

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Details
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Far Flung, 2020
Ink and shell white on paper
76.2 × 55.9 cm
30 × 22 inches

Kara Walker
Far Flung, 2020
Ink and shell white on paper
76.2 × 55.9 cm
30 × 22 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Far Flung, 2020 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Far Flung, 2020 (scale image)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Untitled, 2021
Graphite and ink on paper
50.8 × 66 cm
20 × 26 inches

Kara Walker
Untitled, 2021
Graphite and ink on paper
50.8 × 66 cm
20 × 26 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Untitled, 2021 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Untitled, 2021 (scale image)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Bodysnatcher, 2021
Graphite and watercolor on paper
50.2 × 66 cm
19 3/4 × 26 inches

Kara Walker
Bodysnatcher, 2021
Graphite and watercolor on paper
50.2 × 66 cm
19 3/4 × 26 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Bodysnatcher, 2021 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Bodysnatcher, 2021 (scale image)

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Her storytelling is relentless and the vignettes lend themselves well to creating these pictorial narratives. With contorted bodies, yonic and phallic imagery, sometimes macabare, tragicomic, or vaudevillian, Walker creates subversive implied narratives filled with the familiar content from her cut silhouettes.

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Poverty Nation, 2018
Graphite, graphite putty, colored pencil on paper
27.9 × 38.1 cm
11 × 15 inches

More views
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Scientific Method, 2018
Graphite and ink on paper
38.1 × 57.1 cm
15 × 22 1/2 inches

More views
image/svg+xml
Details
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Poverty Nation, 2018
Graphite, graphite putty, colored pencil on paper
27.9 × 38.1 cm
11 × 15 inches

Kara Walker
Poverty Nation, 2018
Graphite, graphite putty, colored pencil on paper
27.9 × 38.1 cm
11 × 15 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Poverty Nation, 2018 (detail)

Kara Walker
Poverty Nation, 2018 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Poverty Nation, 2018 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Poverty Nation, 2018 (scale image)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Scientific Method, 2018
Graphite and ink on paper
38.1 × 57.1 cm
15 × 22 1/2 inches

Kara Walker
Scientific Method, 2018
Graphite and ink on paper
38.1 × 57.1 cm
15 × 22 1/2 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Scientific Method, 2018 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Scientific Method, 2018 (scale image)

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

 

Throughout the series, Kara Walker makes use of words, using violent, often vulgar, language and descriptions of actions, like in the work, The Surgical Removal of One Thing from the Other (2018/2020), where the words “Free” “Not Free”, “Trapped”, “Captured”, “Escaped”, “Followed” burst forth from the paper.

 

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Vexxed, 2020–22
White ink on paper, Flashe on gampi paper
Left: 55.9 × 76.2 cm, Right: 52.1 × 76.2 cm, Right: 55.9 × 76.2 cm
Left: 22 × 30 inches, Centre: 20 1/2 × 30 inches, Right: 22 × 30 inches

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Vexxed, 2020–22
White ink on paper, Flashe on gampi paper
Left: 55.9 × 76.2 cm, Right: 52.1 × 76.2 cm, Right: 55.9 × 76.2 cm
Left: 22 × 30 inches, Centre: 20 1/2 × 30 inches, Right: 22 × 30 inches

Kara Walker
Vexxed, 2020–22
White ink on paper, Flashe on gampi paper
Left: 55.9 × 76.2 cm, Right: 52.1 × 76.2 cm, Right: 55.9 × 76.2 cm
Left: 22 × 30 inches, Centre: 20 1/2 × 30 inches, Right: 22 × 30 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Vexxed, 2020–22 (detail)

Kara Walker
Vexxed, 2020–22 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Vexxed, 2020–22 (detail)

Kara Walker
Vexxed, 2020–22 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Vexxed, 2020–22 (detail)

Kara Walker
Vexxed, 2020–22 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Vexxed, 2020–22 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Vexxed, 2020–22 (scale image)

Details
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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Eunich and Protégé, 2018
Graphite and ink on paper
33 × 48.3 cm
13 × 19 inches

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Surgical Removal of One Thing from the Other, 2018/2020
Graphite and ink on paper
38.1 × 57.1 cm
15 × 22 1/2 inches

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She also includes individual words, exclamations, cries, clamours, expletives, monologues, and often accusatory narratives such as in Eunich and Protégé, (2018), where she writes: “Are you an anonymous being or merely the spitting image of.” The weight of her words manifest physically across the picture plane. Walker deconstructs and reconstructs the body and every violence enforced against it.

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Details
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Eunich and Protégé, 2018
Graphite and ink on paper
33 × 48.3 cm
13 × 19 inches

Kara Walker
Eunich and Protégé, 2018
Graphite and ink on paper
33 × 48.3 cm
13 × 19 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Eunich and Protégé, 2018 (detail)

Kara Walker
Eunich and Protégé, 2018 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Eunich and Protégé, 2018 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Eunich and Protégé, 2018 (scale image)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Surgical Removal of One Thing from the Other, 2018/2020
Graphite and ink on paper
38.1 × 57.1 cm
15 × 22 1/2 inches

Kara Walker
The Surgical Removal of One Thing from the Other, 2018/2020
Graphite and ink on paper
38.1 × 57.1 cm
15 × 22 1/2 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Surgical Removal of One Thing from the Other, 2018/2020 (detail)

Kara Walker
The Surgical Removal of One Thing from the Other, 2018/2020 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Surgical Removal of One Thing from the Other, 2018/2020 (scale image)

Kara Walker
The Surgical Removal of One Thing from the Other, 2018/2020 (scale image)

Details
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She also includes individual words, exclamations, cries, clamours, expletives, monologues, and often accusatory narratives such as in Eunich and Protégé, (2018), where she writes: “Are you an anonymous being or merely the spitting image of.” The weight of her words manifest physically across the picture plane. Walker deconstructs and reconstructs the body and every violence enforced against it.

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Origin of the World (Juried Art Competition), 2022
Ink on paper
197 x 192.2 cm | 77 5/8 x 75 3/4 inches
208.7 x 203.2 x 7 cm | 82 1/8 x 80 x 2 3/4 inches (framed)

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Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Origin of the World (Juried Art Competition), 2022
Ink on paper
197 x 192.2 cm | 77 5/8 x 75 3/4 inches
208.7 x 203.2 x 7 cm | 82 1/8 x 80 x 2 3/4 inches (framed)

Kara Walker
The Origin of the World (Juried Art Competition), 2022
Ink on paper
197 x 192.2 cm | 77 5/8 x 75 3/4 inches
208.7 x 203.2 x 7 cm | 82 1/8 x 80 x 2 3/4 inches (framed)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Origin of the World (Juried Art Competition), 2022 (detail)

Kara Walker
The Origin of the World (Juried Art Competition), 2022 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
The Origin of the World (Juried Art Competition), 2022 (scale image)

Kara Walker
The Origin of the World (Juried Art Competition), 2022 (scale image)

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As is emblematic of her practice, the works on view are layered with art historical references. In The Origin of the World (Juried Art Competition) (2022), Walker makes pointed reference to Gustave Courbet’s painting of the same name, while rewriting his original intent for The Painter’s Studio (1855) to feature a Black painter at the centre of the work. The artist’s muse becomes the artist, vaunted by her beret, occupying the centre of the visual tableau.

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Lady of the Manor, 2020
Graphite and watercolor on paper
40.6 × 27.9 cm
16 × 11 inches

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Details
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Lady of the Manor, 2020
Graphite and watercolor on paper
40.6 × 27.9 cm
16 × 11 inches

Kara Walker
Lady of the Manor, 2020
Graphite and watercolor on paper
40.6 × 27.9 cm
16 × 11 inches

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Lady of the Manor, 2020 (detail)

Kara Walker
Lady of the Manor, 2020 (detail)

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London
Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

Kara Walker
Lady of the Manor, 2020 (scale image)

Kara Walker
Lady of the Manor, 2020 (scale image)

Details
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As is emblematic of her practice, the works on view are layered with art historical references. In The Origin of the World (Juried Art Competition) (2022), Walker makes pointed reference to Gustave Courbet’s painting of the same name, while rewriting his original intent for The Painter’s Studio (1855) to feature a Black painter at the centre of the work. The artist’s muse becomes the artist, vaunted by her beret, occupying the centre of the visual tableau.

Kara Walker – Ring Around the Rosy – London

All installation views: Wojciech Ketz