Tag Archives: Cindy Sherman

Kara Walker: Pony tricks or Variations?

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Kara Walker‘s work is rarely compared to Cindy Sherman‘s, but they share a similarity I’m not sure I like. ‘One trick pony’ is a hackneyed enough phrase, but that is what I called Cindy Sherman’s work in another post. Her images of herself in costume take on different guises, but ultimately they are all photos of Sherman as someone else. Kara Walker does not take photographs and does not use her own image, but instead takes the history of the South and gives it a modern, darker spin dealing with race and sexuality.

Walker’s body of work is more varied than Sherman’s. In her graphic depictions of gender and racial inequalities,Walker is recognized by her Victorian-style silhouettes but she has also used watercolors, video, painting, and shadow puppets. Her works range from letter sized to room sized. While often working in stark black on white, she also uses color.


In the autumn of 2007, Walker’s work not only opened in galleries in Manhattan, but she had a solo show at the Whitney and a self-curated show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Seeing all her work was a treat. All the more reason why I regret drawing this comparison, but she and Sherman are both one trick ponies.


Her transgressive images of black stereotypes tell a part of Southern history that deserves to be told, but by now I think she has exhausted that combination of style and subject. By the time I had seen all of her work in its many forms and shows, I felt they were variations on a theme.

Variations on a theme are certainly a way of exploring a topic, but I’m not sure that Walker is saying something new. As I honestly enjoy her work ( and Sherman’s for that matter), maybe I’m being too harsh a judge. I just learned the value of such variations at a new play recently. On the other hand, even Beethoven stopped at 33. Perhaps a truly great artist knows when a theme has been exhausted?

Cindy Sherman: One Trick Pony?

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That glorious thing, a MacArthur ‘genius’ grant, was awarded to photographer Cindy Sherman in 2005. As it’s only the beginning of 2009 now, she has this year to still enjoy the substantial prize money. But what does she do with it?

What’s she did before she won: dress up and photograph herself as other people, often women fulfilling cultural roles. Allow me to say, I like her body of work in general. She creates series of portraits as I described, as well as ‘film stills’ that aren’t film stills so much as portraits she shoots of herself. Sherman has dabbled in other projects as well, like video direction, but her art is mainly clever identity and gender politics photographs that are well-shot and fascinating. All the more intriguing when you recognize her face behind the makeup and costume.

Yet not endlessly intriguing. After years of portraits of herself as others, Sherman hasn’t really strayed, much less innovated. Some jokes aren’t as funny the tenth time around, some shticks get old. Sherman, who constantly reinvents herself in her work, has failed to reinvent the work itself. It makes me wonder if she didn’t merely happen on a successful trick of playing dress up and now can’t come up with (or is afraid to try) something new.

It’s easy to start out a genius, and it’s certainly possible to develop into a great artist bit by bit over a career of 30 years. It’s not always so easy to stay a genius.