Kara Walker + Domino Sugar Refinery
Last weekend a few friends and I went to see the Kara Walker art installations at the old Domino Sugar Refinery in Williamsburg. The show has been highly publicized to the point where it felt like it was going to be another Rain Room-type event— long lines, endlessly instagrammable, etc. To my delight, it ended up not only being relatively easy to get into, but once inside the whole installation and space really exceeded all of my expectations.
I arrived around 11:30 on a sunny Saturday morning and there was already a line, but it was nowhere near Rain Room proportions. The show opened at noon, so we didn't have to wait too long, and after a quick "sign this waiver so if the factory falls down while you're in it its not our fault" detour, we were inside.
I was just as interested in seeing the refinery space (one of several buildings in the massive Domino complex) as I was the art, but the two worked perfectly together to create an entire scene. I'm certainly not an art critic, nor do I consider myself informed enough to really comment on Walker's deep and emotional works, but I definitely think they need to really be seen (in person) to begin to be understood.
The main event is, of course, the massive (so much bigger than I had expected) Marvelous Sugar Baby sphinx, but I thought the smaller statues scattered around the refinery are just as powerful, especially when taken in all together. The main statue is covered in refined, white sugar, and is laying on a bed of it.
The smaller boy statues are a mix between ceramic, resin and actual candy — most are covered in molasses and some are disintegrating rapidly in the non-temperature controlled environment. They are holding bunches of bananas or baskets filled with sugar and are life-sized and completely disarming.
Because this is New York, and especially Williamsburg, most of the Domino Sugar Refinery will be torn down after this exhibit ends to make way for luxury apartments (among other things). One of the buildings and the famous Domino sign are landmarked, so they get to stay, but after July 6th everything else will be gone.
The refinery space is completely amazing — rusty beams, old signs, sugar caked on everything — and I'm already mourning its inevitable demise. I'm grateful, however that someone had the foresight to at least organize this exhibition as a "last hurrah," even if we were slightly horrified by people taking completely inappropriate photos/selfies with every piece of enlarged anatomy they could find.
It makes me wonder if the parents forcing their children to pose in front of the young boy sculptures (smile!) or the sphinx's large nipples (Here's one for the Christmas Card!) even had the slightest clue what they were actually seeing. We also wondered if Mario Batali, who was walking amongst the sculptures in his signature orange Crocs, was actually a fan of Walker's work — or was just there for the 30 tons of sugar.