Artist Kara Walker arrives in Argentina with an exhibition that challenges racism and memory.

The work of Kara Walker (Stockton, California, 1969) challenges the canons Without any pretense of solemnity. This American artist, whose work can be seen for the first time in Argentina at the recently inaugurated exhibition at the PROA Foundation , takes hold of historical narratives, without rigor and with her own interpretations, to rethink them in the present in light of currents that address minorities, feminism, dissidence, racism, and oppression. In short: she thinks and works on aspects of history that are outside the hegemonic discourses of the United States.

Walker is known for her silhouette compositions, which she uses in animations, drawings, and prints. The technique originated in 18th-century France as a cheap way to create portraits during wartime . It was used both at court and among the lower classes. The technique became so popular in the United States that everyone from presidents to slaves had their portraits made in silhouette.

The PROA exhibition serves as a letter of introduction to the Argentine public ; a non-chronological anthology showcasing his most iconic works and techniques for visitors unaccustomed to firsthand exposure to contemporary artists on the world stage.

The exhibition opens with two points : on the one hand, a series of early drawings, where only with the figures of two characters he composes scenes with strong black humor and a critical imprint on white domination and patriarchy.

Short titles accompany her drawings: "Free Girls of the North," "Words Too Heavy for My Head," and "Destroying Terror" serve as a guide to interpreting these sometimes cryptic compositions . Walker's drawing technique finds its references in 19th-century popular illustration, caricature, children's stories, and the caprices of Francisco de Goya.

On the other hand, a triptych, emulating a Byzantine altarpiece, emerged during a residency in Rome in 2016. Steeped in the Catholic symbolism she encountered at every turn in the Roman capital, the artist reflected on martyrdom, myth, and Christian iconography rooted in American history and the slave trade. The silhouettes of two mulattoes, a woman and a man on each side, appear again.

In the center, where the figure of the Virgin is located in sacred art, there is a drawing of a scene where the protagonist is the colossal statue of a naked black woman being lifted from the ground by smaller figures.

Among the multiplicity of formats Walker works with are also videos , where silhouette puppets star in short scenes. Once again, this short, reminiscent of silent films from the early days of cinema, conceals a narrative that combines violence, moral tension, and action. The work's structure emerges when the artist's hand appears in the scene, moving her puppets. It's a reminder that Walker takes episodes from history, but avoids historical accuracy by incorporating her own perspective, her own hand, which is not without its biases.

The heart of the exhibition, Room 2, houses expansive murals and silkscreens . A mural of cutout paper silhouettes—"Endless Conundrum," "An African Anonymous Adventures"—examines the appropriation and exoticization of African identity and culture. It moves beyond themes related to slavery to address how African tribal motifs played a key role in the transition from realism to abstraction and the deconstruction of space in the work of artists such as Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti.

In front of this work is a set of 27 silkscreens, "Approximate Emancipation," a title that refers to Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the document in which the former president of the United States abolished slavery in 1863. Using a Victorian technique of cutouts on black paper and micro scenes with wonderful flashes, Walker created an ironic interpretation of this policy that put an end to slavery, but not to segregation.

What at first glance seems like a fairy tale quickly turns terrifying . People with African-American features appear with animal limbs, there are scenes of lesbianism, abortions, flying children, and even characters from Alice in Wonderland sneak in.

Finally, PROA presents two large three-dimensional works by Walker: monumental sculptures that connect, dialogue, and challenge the idea of ​​the monument as a recognition of merit. Photographic records of two of his most emblematic projects are presented, as well as models and sketches that are works in their own right.

Of her sculptural works, the foundation exhibits the project that led Walker to mount an immense sculpture of a half-animal, half-woman sphinx with African-American features in the former Domino sugar factory in Brooklyn, New York.

It's the mummy, a character deeply rooted in American culture, associated with care and servitude. She's covered in sugar, the driving force behind vast plantations in the Caribbean and North America where slaves worked. The artist seeks to put women, sexuality, slavery, sugar refining , its excessive and addictive consumption, wealth inequality, and the industrial power that uses the human body to obtain what it needs regardless of the cost to life and physical integrity at the center of the debate.

Curator Sofía Dourron (she will offer a guided tour of the exhibition at PROA on Saturday, September 13 at 5 p.m.) maintains that the artist is “thinking about and showing aspects of history that are not normally included in the hegemonic discourses regarding the history she is writing in the United States.” “She does this in such a way that the materials and techniques she chooses to use always go hand in hand with what she is trying to convey in these works,” she notes.

The second monumental project was completed in 2019 for the Turbine Hall of London's Tate Modern , an iconic space for hosting large-scale projects. Walker's work began with one of the English capital's most important monuments, the Victoria Memorial, a tribute to Queen Victoria located just meters from Buckingham Palace. It was the first time he took his monumental sculptures outside the United States, and with it he explored the interconnected histories of Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

At the top of Walker's version , a Venus arches her back as a jet of water emerges from her throat , as well as from her breasts. The human figures decorating her fountain are gaunt and forlorn; others appear burdened by greed and pride, dressed in ill-fitting nautical suits or a caricatured version of an imaginary African "national costume."

She even goes so far as to include her own version of, as she calls her, "Queen Vicky," a woman with her skirt lifted in a sexual attitude . For the artist, the existence of the British Empire, which Queen Victoria shaped during the second-longest reign in British history, was key to the slave trade in the United States.

Kara Walker at Fundación PROA (Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1929) from Wednesday to Sunday from 12 to 19, until November 2025.