
Kelley Walker (American, born 1969). Black Star Press (rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise); Press, Black Star, 2006. Chocolate on digital print on canvas, 83 x 104 inches (210.8 x 264.2 cm). Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Charlotte A. Watson Fund, by exchange, and Gift of Mrs. Seymour H. Knox, Sr., by exchange, 2008 (2008:12a-b). © 2006 Kelley Walker, Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.
© Kelley Walker
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Kelley Walker
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.


Kelley Walker
American, born 1969
Black Star Press (rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise); Press, Black Star, 2006
diptych: digital print with silkscreened chocolate on canvas
2008:12a (left panel): 83 x 52 inches (210.82 x 132.08 cm); 2008:12b (right panel): 83 x 52 inches (210.82 x 132.08 cm); overall: 83 x 104 inches (210.82 x 264.16 cm)
Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Charlotte A. Watson Fund, by exchange, and Gift of Mrs. Seymour H. Knox, Sr., by exchange, 2008
2008:12a-b
More Details
Provenance
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York;May 6, 2008, purchased by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Class
Work Type
Information may change due to ongoing research.Glossary of Terms
Kelley Walker’s artwork uses advertising and appropriated images to comment on politics, violence, and consumer culture. In Black Star Press (rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise); Press, Black Star, Walker manipulates an iconic Civil Rights–era image taken by the photojournalist Charles Moore for the photographic agency Black Star. Instead of simply replicating the photograph, Walker rotates it and overlays portions of the silkscreened image with chocolate—a material process that reinforces the issues of race and confrontation depicted in the image. Other works by Walker deploy similar approaches, such as the addition of whitening toothpaste to R&B magazine covers and the digital alteration of disaster photographs to mimic advertisements. Walker appropriates mass media images as a commentary on how these already loaded images can act as a further basis for sociopolitical meaning.
Label from DECADE: Contemporary Collecting 2002–2012, August 21, 2012–January 6, 2013