IN ANTICIPATION OF ITS REOPENING, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York asked writer Roxane Gay to select a work of art from its collection and discuss what she sees in it. She chose “Christ’s Entry Into Journalism” (2017) by Kara Walker. “She has managed in a series of figures to depict the whole of African American history on one canvas and that’s a pretty incredible thing to do,” Gay says in the video below. During the summer of 2017, Walker made a series of large and small drawings for a fall exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins Gallery in New York. The title of the show garnered widespread attention due to its unwieldy length—a paragraph-long, tongue-in-cheek screed that referenced the outsized expectations and judgements placed on Walker and her work over the years. It felt like there was more press about the title than the works presented in the show, which included “Christ’s Entry Into Journalism” (2017), a monumental work that expands Walker’s universe beyond the Antebellum South. Acquired by MoMA last year, the drawing is more than 11 feet high and 16 feet wide providing an expansive landscape upon which Walker has scattered disturbing and documentary images, … Continue reading Writer Roxane Gay Weighs in on Kara Walker’s Work at the New MoMA: ‘It’s Important that You Don’t Look Away’