Book cover of Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love

Book description

Kara Walker is among the most complex and prolific American artists of her generation. Over the past decade, she has gained international recognition for her room-sized tableaux, which depict historical narratives haunted by sexuality, violence and subjugation and are made using the paradoxically genteel eighteenth-century art of cut-paper silhouettes. Set…

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1 author picked Kara Walker as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Warning: This book will shock, intrigue, sadden, disturb, and ultimately stimulate you. This African American artist has produced an impressive and unique body of artwork that interrogates the conflicted nature of race in America.

This book provides a survey of her visually stunning work, including her controversial silhouette cut-outs that depict various charged images that draw on stereotypes to challenge and rework them. With shadowy figures that hint simultaneously at sexuality, subjugation, violence, and desire, this fascinating volume is not for the faint of heart or the easily disturbed.

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Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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In late April 1865, almost 2,000 newly freed Union prisoners of war are packed onto the steamer Sultana, in poor repair and with a listed capacity of 376 passengers. Among them are four Indiana soldiers…

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