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  • [Kara Walker: Starting Out]

  • [Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, NY]

  • Okay, I think...

  • I'll probably need the ladder.

  • Can you move it over a little?

  • And, um...

  • Actually...

  • I have to maybe credit my 24-year-old self

  • for making a couple of good moves.

  • [The Drawing Center, New York, NY]

  • When I started showing work,

  • I was Providence, Rhode Island--

  • I was a student.

  • I was 24,

  • and had a big breakout piece at

  • The Drawing Center in New York City.

  • And it's delicate because the only two things

  • that are holding them together

  • are at the fingertips.

  • This is Huck Finn in a dress,

  • and his foot is going to land about here.

  • People were just interested and curious.

  • Galleries were calling

  • and wanted to know more,

  • and artists, they wanted to warn me against

  • having a big success at a young age.

  • I kind of felt like,

  • "Well, I don't know myself yet,"

  • "and they don't know me either,"

  • "but if I stay in Providence,"

  • "and take these opportunities as they come,"

  • "that's good."

  • I knew I wasn't ready to live in New York.

  • But, I knew that change is kind of inevitable,

  • and I did want to come to the city when I felt ready.

  • I've been teaching for, like, twelve years or something

  • at Columbia University.

  • I started when I was also a veritable baby

  • and about the same age as many of the graduate students,

  • and that was extremely awkward.

  • When I came to the city,

  • I felt like my newly forming ego and sense of self

  • was just, like, torn to shreds.

  • I don't think I wanted to have the role

  • that I was hired for,

  • which was "a successful artist who was successful at a young age,"

  • "telling people how to get what I got."

  • But, I think I just accepted it this year,

  • that I must know something--it's been twenty years.

  • I don't know what that something is,

  • but if I just keep talking,

  • then that something, you know, might slip out.

  • [Frieze Art Fair, New York, NY]

  • There's no diploma in the world that,

  • you know, declares you as an artist--

  • it's not like becoming a doctor, or something.

  • Like, you can declare yourself an artist

  • and then figure out how to be an artist.

  • It's a different art world than the one that I stepped into.

  • It does seem to be bigger.

  • There's more distractions, in a way,

  • from the process of making one's own work.

  • The pressure to, kind of, conform to a particular

  • grad school pedigree is problematic.

  • And I think a lot of people feel that way.

  • It's, like, a reality that artists are selling work

  • in order to pay back massive debt from these M.F.A. programs.

  • But, I did tell my students, not too long ago,

  • that they have to--and will--

  • change the art world

  • from the moment they step into it.

  • Like, if it means prioritizing, you know,

  • critical discourse over objects,

  • or products, or something like that.

  • Then, if that's what you want,

  • then you have to, kind of, make it happen.

  • And if it's too expensive to make it happen right here,

  • then you have to make it happen in the place where you can,

  • and don't think of that as any kind of demotion.

  • If you can look at the negatives as a student

  • and see what needs to be changed,

  • then you have to do that.

[Kara Walker: Starting Out]

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