Skip to main content

Visit Main Menu Block

  • Hours & Admission
  • Accessibility & Amenities
  • Tours & Group Visits
  • Visitor Guidelines

Exhibitions and Events Main Menu Block

  • Exhibitions
  • Events

Art and Design Main Menu Block

  • The Collection
  • Projects & Publications
  • Past Exhibitions

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Image

Previous 1 / 1 Next

Kara Walker

Vanishing Act, 1997

Description

Maker

  • Kara Walker, b. 1969, American, (RISD MFA 1994, Printmaking)
  • Landfall Press, Inc., publisher

Title

Vanishing Act

Year

1997

Medium

Etching and aquatint on chine-collé

Dimensions

Image: 30 x 22.8 cm (11 13/16 x 9 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Signed, dates and numbered in graphite, lower margin; published stamp on verso in ink.
Stamp reads: Copyright 1997
Landfall Press Inc
329 W. 18th Street
Suite 601
Chicago, IL 60616

Under stamp in graphite: KW-96-05-e

Cross in graphite on verso at top; graphite line at bottom, verso

Identification

Edition

7/35

Type

  • Works on Paper,
  • Prints

Credit

Paula and Leonard Granoff Fund

Object Number

2018.18

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Visions and Revisions

February 15 - August 4, 2019

Crouching on a theater stage in front of a shadowy audience, a black woman in 19th-century dress devours a little white girl. This shocking scene can be seen as a reversal of the appropriation of black bodies by white oppressors in spectacles such as blackface minstrelsy. At the same time, Walker has described cannibalism as a sensual mixture of love and hate, pointing to interpretations of it as a symbol of the complex psychological interconnections between the exploiter and the exploited. Violent and ambiguous, the print echoes the darkest images by Goya, which Walker studied while preparing this work.

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is Vanishing Act with the accession number of 2018.18. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

RISD Museum

  •  Facebook
  •  Twitter
  •  Instagram
  •  Vimeo
  •  Pinterest
  •  SoundCloud

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Footer Secondary

  • Image Request
  • Press Office
  • Rent the Museum
  • Terms of Use