In this video, art historian and writer Ben Street discusses African American artist Kara Walker’s 2017 ink and pencil on paper work, ‘Christ’s entry into Journalism’.

Walker is known for creating black-and-white silhouette works that invoke themes of African American racial identity. Her subjects, often scenes of slavery, conflict or violence, are rendered in a style recalling traditional African illustration and folklore of the pre-Civil War United States.

Invoking Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem ahead of his crucifixion, ‘Christ’s entry into Journalism’ collapses past horrors and present realities. It depicts recognisable black figures like Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr., while a crowd teems with Klansmen, riot police, slaves and soldiers. Near the work’s upper edge, the mass of bodies culminates with a lynched man flanked by a pair of irreverent trapeze artists.

The work is part of the collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

View the original video here.

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