22 Things You Didn't Know About Kara Walker

Here are some little-known facts about the life and work of Kara Walker.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Kara Walker has taken the art world by storm by rejecting artistic convention and creating her own rules. The New York-based artist has changed the way we approach race and gender in art in her exploration of identity, racism, and sexism. She does not shy away from difficult subject matter such as violence or stereotyping, even if critics have called her work shameful. The critical reaction is intentionally part of her message; she says, “My works are erotically explicit, shameless. I would be happy if visitors would stand in front of my work and feel a bit ashamed—ashamed because they have…simply believed in the project of modernism.” 

Walker's first large-scale solo project will take place at the to-be-demolished Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn from today through July 6, 2014. She has titled the show, "At the behest of Creative Time, Kara E. Walker has confected A Subtlety, or The Marvelous Sugar Baby an homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant." The show will be open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays and admission is free, so you if you're in N.Y., you have no reason to miss it.

Here are 22 Things You Didn't Know About Kara Walker.

RELATED: Watch the Teaser Video for Kara Walker's Installation at the Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn
RELATED: Kara Walker to Create Her First Large-Scale Public Installation Project at the Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn

She is the second youngest recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's genius grant, which she was awarded at the age of 27.

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She says that the first 13 years of her life, while she lived in Northern California, were free of any thought of race.

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She chose the silhouette form partially to make a statement about how she felt excluded from the fine art world.

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She writes on a typewriter, not a laptop.

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Titles are very important to her work, almost as important as the visual aspect. Her favorite title of an artwork that she's done is Two Competing Suns and the Imposter.

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She has a special interest in anonymous artists because of the mystery surrounding their work.

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Much of her art has been constructed from the viewpoint of "Kara Elizabeth Walker, an emancipated Negress and a leader in her cause." She has also gone by many other names.

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She feels a certain kinship with Mark Twain.

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She has never censored her art from her daughter.

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The first piece of art that she can remember strongly impacting her is Christian Schad's.

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She is mostly influenced by literature, particularly "bad romance novels and porno."

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She decided to become an artist when she was three and was inspired by her father, who is also an artist.

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Her mother walked out of a showing of her explicit film Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pippi's Blue Tale.

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She has no assistants and does all of the work to install her exhibitions by herself.

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Toni Morrison once wrote her a letter, which she has framed.

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She describes herself as an optimist, but one tempered by terror.

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In the 1990s, she gave up painting to avoid the legacy of white male patriarchy over the medium.

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A former professor of hers claims "that shyness had once left her close to silent."

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She is drawn to the carnivalesque and has a wicked sense of humor.

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She does much of her art through free association, trusting her subconscious to bring together and visualize the topics and issues she researches and thinks about.

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At the beginning of her artistic career, she gained inspiration from kitsch and racist knick-knacks that she found when browsing flea markets.

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