Antebellum Period

 

A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby

Kara Walker’s sculpture, “A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby,”  is created by sugar from the Domino company, in which she creates a massive sphinx with the typical mammy caricature as the face, while the tail end is a large bottom exposing the female genitalia. Throughout the rest of her exhibit there are statues of children made out of molasses, all of which are either carrying a woven basket or what looks like stalks of sugarcane in their hands. Walker chose the Domino Factory as her exhibit location after it closed its doors in 2004. By placing her exhibit in the factory, she made her sculpture entirely out of sugar and molasses.