A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby
Site-specific temporary installation by Kara Walker, 2014, commissioned by Creative Time for the former Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. A monumental white sphinx-like female figure — approximately 11 metres tall and 23 metres long — constructed of raw sugar and polystyrene over a chicken-wire armature, was placed at the far end of the cavernous factory floor. Surrounding it were a series of smaller figures of molasses-dark boy attendants carrying sugar cane or standing in states of servitude or collapse. The installation ran for ten weeks (May–July 2014) before being demolished along with the factory. Drawn approximately 130,000 visitors.
Scholarly Significance
Anchor the African American contemporary art / site-specific installation cluster with Kara Walker's A Subtlety — a monumental temporary installation examining slavery, sugar, and Black women's exploitation.
Notes
- ·Full title: '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.'
- ·Commissioned by Creative Time, a New York-based public art organisation.
- ·The Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, opened in 1882 and was one of the world's largest sugar refineries at its peak. It closed in 2004.
- ·The building was slated for demolition for luxury residential redevelopment; the Creative Time commission was specifically linked to this end-of-life moment.
- ·The attendant boy figures were cast in resin and tinted to a molasses-dark brown. Several were sold to collectors following the exhibition.
- ·Documentary film of the installation: 'An Audience' (2014), dir. Andrew Rossi.