US artist Kara Walker has created an astounding large-scale sculpture made with sugar, entitled “A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby”.
A sphinx in the form of an African woman, occupies the hall of an old Domino Sugar Refining Plant as a tribute to the building before its demolition. It also honors the “unpaid and overworked artisans who have refined our sweet tastes from the cane fields to the kitchens of the new world”.
The larger-than-life sugary creation “sits somewhere in between the kind of mammy figure of old and something a little bit more recognizable”—a human with defined features and a curvy figure, that draws the viewer in with “arms flat out across the ground and large breasts that are staring at you”.
Alongside the massive sugar sphinx stand 15 boys made with “molasses-coloured candy” that has melted, forming blood-like trails—the beautiful exhibit is actually a historical depiction of the “horror-riddled Caribbean slave trade” for refined sugar.
The installation will be opened to public through 6 July 2014, find more information here.
[via Creative Time, NPR]