Zoe Lescaze explores the connotations and histories behind A Subtlety or The Marvelous Sugar Baby, an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant within how A Subtlety came into existence and how it ceased to exist. By looking at the genesis of the sculpture with Creative Time, Lescaze is able to tie Kara Walker’s site specificity to both space and time.
Creative Time’s history is based in utilizing “sites of transition” to push dialogue on space, and Walker’s piece served as a part of their push to create dialogue on gentrification. Walker states that it is tragic to see history bulldozed for the next inevitable stage of development, but her piece engages with that tragedy. By creating A Subtlety, Walker is able to recognize the history of the Domino factory and the sugar trade that took place parallel to it. A Subtlety also contributes to the tragedy of the demolition, since the art would either be demolished with the structure or decay before demolition day. Walker’s aesthetics comment on the history of the sugar trade within the space while her use of sugar, a degradable material, highlights the fleeting time of the structure that houses her sculpture. This pairing of space and time together redefines site specificity as a more poignantly contextual concept.
Lescaze writes that A Subtlety is “simultaneously submissive…and commanding,” which not only relates to the woman and her pose, but also the space. Creative Time and Kara Walker are not fighting for the preservation of this space, they are not attempting to save the building to save the history that goes with it. Instead, by creating A Subtlety, Walker is submitting to the fate of the space and accepting that this is a temporary work in a temporary site – all of which will soon be destroyed. But she is also commanding the site. A Subtlety situates the site within its own context of both time and space, and will continue to radiate through the site once the demolition is done. Walker was able to recognize what is at play in the history of this site. By creating this sculpture, now there is new history at play, and the visitors and occupants of that site will henceforth have to recognize it too.