Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York
Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi's Blue Tale
Short Film | Kara Walker
A sophisticated shadow puppet drama about sex and slavery.
Kara Walker's Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi's Blue Tale, at Lehmann Maupin, is the film component of an exhibition that spans two galleries. It is a sophisticated shadow puppet drama about sex, slavery, race, and murder set in the Antebellum South. Considering its heavy content, you might not imagine it to be an ideal summer kick-off, but to miss the film (and its sister exhibition, a tour de force suite of drawings at Sikkema Jenkins) would be a huge disservice to your senses. Don't worry, there will be plenty of laid back group shows this summer for all your Easy Listening art viewing needs! Walker's film is more like the Blues-hard edged, silver tongued and bluntly eloquent. The story is one of straightforward passion and rage, yet Walker's characters give it real nuance. With fingers attenuated like claws, they twist, lurch and ply at each other. Hair flies. People scream in agony and sweat in ecstasy. There's even an intermission-a glossy song and dance number-performed by slaves for the entertainment of white folks. Walker plays the contradiction of the sun baked Southern landscape as silent witness to tragedy to the hilt. This might just the perfect summer show after all.
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