About Kara Walker's Slaughter of the Innocents
Women’s rights are facing increased legislation in the United States. This is 1 of 8 pivotal artworks about women’s autonomy and sexuality.
Cover photo: Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something), cut paper, acrylic, and graphite on canvas, by Kara Walker (2016).
Even in this #MeToo era, women’s rights are still under attack. Activists are fighting all over the world, for the LGBT community, Black lives, and women’s control over their own bodies and sexuality. Just recently, 8 states have passed new anti-abortion bills. Here are 8 pivotal artworks about women’s autonomy and sexuality. This is one work of an eight-part series.
WARNING: The following article discusses topics of sex, murder, slavery, and rape.
Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something) — Kara Walker (2016)
Kara Walker (1969-Present) is a contemporary American artist whose works explore sex, violence, and slavery. Walker is known for her use of intricate silhouettes inspired by the antebellum American south. In 1997, she became the second-youngest person ever awarded the MacArthur Genius Grant.
Walker’s oeuvre is unrelenting and disturbing. She has been frequently criticized for her sensationalism. In 1999, fellow African-American artist Betye Saar called Walker’s art “revolting and negative and a form of betrayal to the slaves, particularly women and children; that it was basically for the amusement and the investment of the white art establishment.” The critique could certainly apply to Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something), one of Walker’s most haunting works. Here — on one of her first large-scale compositions mounted to canvas — Walker portrays a grim outlook of African-American childhood, motherhood, and subjugation.
Detail of Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something), cut paper, acrylic, and graphite on canvas, by Kara Walker (2016).
Detail of Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something), cut paper, acrylic, and graphite on canvas, by Kara Walker (2016).
Detail of Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something), cut paper, acrylic, and graphite on canvas, by Kara Walker (2016).
As writer Faye Hirsch describes, “the devil spins plates, a naked girl flees through the legs of a huge male predator, and a child gobbles down a chunk of baby.” Walker includes countless nightmarish details in Slaughter of the Innocents. A small ship floats in the lower left corner of the canvas, most likely a slave ship, and just to the right of that is a cracked egg, symbolizing lost — even wasted — fertility.
Detail of Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something), cut paper, acrylic, and graphite on canvas, by Kara Walker (2016).
Detail of HMS Brisk and Emanuela, illustration, by Arthur H. Clark (1910). Courtesy of Wikipedia.
The title, Slaughter of the Innocents, refers to the Biblical Massacre of the Innocents, as commanded by King Herod of Judaea. Herod ordered the slaughter of all newborn babies in Bethlehem, in an attempt to kill the infant Jesus, whom Herod feared would seize his kingdom. Walker uses the word “Slaughter” — like for animals — instead of “Massacre” which implies a dehumanization of the victims.
This topic of Herod’s massacre was especially popular during the Renaissance. Al Jazeera writer Hamid Dabashi succinctly explains, “many European artists […] have painted this episode both for the formal and compositional challenge that it poses and also iconically to connect it to the political events of their own contemporary time. Through these paintings, the parable has become a potent visual register of the artists’ contemporary politics, and thus assumed even more proverbial potency.”
Bruegel presents the massacre as a Flemish community attacked by the Spanish army (the horse-riders wearing red coats in the foreground) and German mercenaries (background). The version painted by Peter Paul Rubens was likely inspired by the Sack of Antwerp, in which the Spanish army raped and killed 7,000 people. Walker’s rendering is set in the antebellum American south, which was dominated by plantations worked by enslaved African people.
Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something), cut paper, acrylic, and graphite on canvas, by Kara Walker (2016).
The most obvious difference between the works of the European masters and Walker’s is the medium. Walker abandons the traditional oil paints in favor of cut paper figures. “Silhouette cutting for me was my rebellion against high art and painting and to me a way of undermining the patriarchal tendency in western art,” asserts Walker, establishing a medium by and for a newly empowered demographic.
Slavery, of course, is the ultimate form of subjugation of humanity. Pregnancy was viewed solely in economic terms. It is impossible to estimate how many enslaved women were raped by their slave owners. Slave owners laid claim to a woman’s offspring and thus reproductive potential was inherently tied to capitalism.
During insurrections, vigilante militias would kill escaping slaves. There was never any punishment for doing so. Even a “casual killing of slaves” was legal. Famously, the slave woman Margaret Garner killed her daughter to spare her a miserable life of slavery.
In the center right, a woman holds a baby in her arms and a small flame floats above her head, a representation of the Holy Spirit. Is she holding the baby Jesus? Walkers seems to allude to the squandered potential of murdered children with a sardonic twist. In 2014, bystanders at a park noticed 12-year-old Tamir Rice at a Cleveland park; he was alone and carrying something that looked like a gun. Perhaps he was “guilty of something.” Rice was fatally shot within seconds of the arrival of an on-duty police officer who responded to a 911 call; Rice’s gun was found to be a toy pistol. The officer was fired but not indicted.
Detail of Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something), cut paper, acrylic, and graphite on canvas, by Kara Walker (2016).
Kara Walker’s combination of the antebellum South and classical Biblical tale reminds the viewer that the story of subjugation is timeless. As HuffPost writer Priscilla Frank notes, “This constant conflation of here and there, now and then, communicates the undead grip racism and misogyny hold on our country.” Today activists like those of Black Lives Matter continue to fight against the systemic — and often government sanctioned — subjugation of African-Americans. Walker continues to make provocative work; she is as relevant as ever.
