Kara Walker's Afterword exhibition examines audience self-imaging at her 2014 Domino Sugar Factory installation

Kara Walker's 2014 site-specific installation A Subtlety featured a monumental sugar-coated sphinx at Brooklyn's Domino Sugar Factory, accompanied by molasses-dripping child-worker sculptures. Her subsequent exhibition Afterword presented preparatory drawings, sculptural remnants, and short films responding to the original work's reception. The exhibition included a 27-minute film titled An Audience (2014), documenting viewers during the final hour of A Subtlety's exhibition in July 2014. Walker employed six cameramen to capture audience behavior, particularly their use of phones and cameras for self-imaging. The film contrasts emotional reactions to the installation with the detached activity of photographers documenting the scene. Preparatory watercolor sketches like Progeny (2014) connect historical colonial-era tourist imagery with contemporary smartphone photography. Walker's watercolor medium references 19th-century picturesque scene documentation while depicting decapitated sphinxes with camera-phone-wielding figures. The exhibition explores how digital sharing and selfie culture mediated public engagement with Walker's provocative artwork. Afterword was featured in the March 2015 issue of ArtReview.