ART CITIES: Berlin-Kara Walker

In an era where, as Kara Walker observes, “Fantasy rules our world now. Conjecture, myth, storytelling, tall tales, hearsay, heresies, nobody to be believed and repercussions galore,” her art serves as both scalpel and mirror, dissecting the myths that sustain American violence while compelling viewers to confront their own implication in the construction of such narratives.

By DDimitris Lempesis
Photo:Sprüth Magers Gallery Archive

In her latest exhibition “Dispatches from A— and the Museum of Half-remembered Histories”, 2026), Kara Walker confronts the deceptive power of fantasy in shaping collective memory. As she herself observes, “Fantasy rules our world now. Conjecture, myth, storytelling, tall tales, hearsay, heresies, nobody to be believed and repercussions galore.” This declaration frames her new body of work, which functions simultaneously as scalpel and mirror: dissecting the myths that undergird American violence while reflecting viewers’ complicity in sustaining such narratives.

Walker constructs what might be called an eccentric history museum, appropriating the monumental scale of history painting and the authority of museum display. Her collages, pastels, and watercolors interrogate the ways history has been written, mythologized, and sanitized—particularly in the aftermath of the Civil War, when popular histories sought to reconcile contradictions between freedom and oppression.

The exhibition debuts large-scale cutout collages in vibrant ink and watercolor, expanding upon Walker’s iconic black silhouettes by introducing expressive washes of color and textured surfaces. Inspired by an 1870s “Popular History of the United States”, Walker probes how national identity was constructed through selective storytelling. “Tituba’s Handmaidens” (2025) merges imagery from the Salem witch trials with references to John Singer Sargent and Diego Velázquez, exposing how foundational contradictions were rewritten for popular consumption.

“Liberation (after Ben Shahn)” (2025) reinterprets Shahn’s 1945 depiction of children among war rubble. Walker replaces innocence with horror: lifeless figures hang from poles, evoking lynching and war casualties, while a child plays obliviously in the foreground. Trauma becomes normalized, passed down as inherited wounds. “Inaugural Fantasia” (2025), a monumental diptych, depicts entangled naked bodies resembling political figures. It critiques the fetishization of authority, suggesting democracy’s decline is accompanied by an eroticized obsession with power.

Walker’s collages are joined by pastels and watercolors that reimagine traditional genres. “Cypher of the Old Republick” and “Cypher for the New Republick” (2025) reference Philip Guston’s hooded Klan figures, arranging dismembered body parts into circular compositions. These works underscore the cyclical nature of violence and the enduring shadow of slavery. “Vanitas #7” (2025) subverts Dutch and Spanish still-life traditions. Severed limbs mingle with vegetables in a wicker basket, confronting viewers with the cost of Western prosperity to Black life. The imagery resonates with Thanksgiving’s sanitized myth of colonial harmony, exposing the erasure of slavery and expansionist brutality.

Walker’s exhibition insists that the artist’s role is to reveal what fantasy obscures. By appropriating the visual languages of Western culture—grand history painting, museum authority—she destabilizes their legitimacy. Her works juxtapose beauty with brutality, intimacy with exploitation, compelling audiences to confront uncomfortable truths.

With this exhibition, Walker positions herself as a surreptitious instigator, crafting a museum of half-remembered histories that refuses closure. Her art demonstrates that in an era of deception, the most vital act is to make visible what others would render invisible.

Photo: Kara Walker, To the Mountaintop, 2025, Watercolor and ink on paper, 56.5 × 76.8 cm | 22 1/4 × 30 1/4 inches, 63.5 × 83.8 cm | 25 × 33 inches (framed), © Kara Walker, Courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers Gallery

Info: Sprüth Magers Gallery, Oranienburger Straße 18,  Berlin, Germany, Duration: 14/11/2025-4/4/2026, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, https://spruethmagers.com/