On SUN 10.27.2013, 21c Museum Hotels will debut a new film program in Louisville, Cincinnati and Bentonville in collaboration with Art21. The inaugural screening will feature Kara Walker: Negress, a documentary produced by Art21 on this leading contemporary artist, whose prints, sculptures, and textile work are included in the 21c Collection. A new collaboration between 21c and Art21 will make this and other Exclusive short-format documentaries available to 21c guests and visitors at special screening events and on Channel Two, the 21c in-room art channel.

On the same day, Kara Walker’s Exclusive short-format documentary will also premiere in Louisville and Cincinnati on Channel Two, the 21c in-room video art channel, at various times throughout the day.

About Kara Walker: Negress
Filmed between 2002 and 2003, Kara Walker discusses her use of the term “negress” in the titles of museum exhibitions and limited-edition books. Drawn to the “tawny negress” described by author Thomas Dixon Jr. in his 1905 novel The Clansman, Walker began referring to herself as a “negress of noteworthy talent,” commenting on her position as an acclaimed African American artist. Walker’s installations at the Tang Teaching Museum (2003) and the Whitney Museum of American Art (2007) are featured in the film.

Kara Walker is best known for her raw explorations of race, gender, and sexuality through silhouetted figures. Walker unleashes this traditionally peaceful Victorian medium of portraiture directly onto gallery walls, creating a theatrical space in which cut paper characters often engage in violent and aggressive acts. With one foot in the historical realism of slavery, and the other in the fantastical space of the romance novel, Walker’s nightmarish fictions simultaneously seduce and implicate the viewer.

About Art21
Over the past decade, Art21 has established itself as the preeminent chronicler of contemporary art and artists through its Peabody Award-winning biennial television series, Art in the Twenty-First Century. The nonprofit organization has used the power of digital media to introduce millions of people of all ages to contemporary art and artists and has created a new paradigm for teaching and learning about the creative process. In addition to its PBS-broadcast series, Art21 produces short-format documentary series, viewable on multiple online platforms. The Exclusive short-format video series – with almost 200 episodes to date released biweekly on Art21.org – highlights featured artists from the Art21 roster using a blend of both new and previously unreleased footage.

Learn more at:
> art21.org/films
> art21.org/films/exclusive

Production still from the Art21 Exclusive episode, Kara Walker: Negress. © Art21, Inc. 2013.