“Because of slavery”: The Irreverent Art of Kara Walker and Harryette Mullen

“Because of slavery” is the correct answer to the question: Why did the slaveholding states go to war against the free states of the Union? MONUMENTS reckons with deceptive narratives implicit in the presentation of a defeated Confederacy — not as traitors and losers, but as objects of hero worship. The Old South lost the Civil War but won the nation’s post-war reconciliation with monuments, movies, and textbooks that upheld white supremacy and perpetuated black subordination. Kara Walker’s art and Harryette Mullen’s poetry have in common an irreverent attitude toward oppressive systems and institutions, from the Lost Cause glorified in the proliferation of Confederate monuments to the ghosts of slavery still haunting American life. Walker and Mullen employ exacting craft to disarm the ugly isms with parody, satire, humor, and surprising remixes of historical and cultural artifacts.

In view of Walker’s Unmanned Drone, Mullen will read from her latest poetry collection, Regaining Unconsciousness.

Harryette Mullen’s latest poetry collection, Regaining Unconsciousness (Graywolf, 2025) is one of Publishers Weekly’s and California Independent Booksellers Alliance’s Best Books of the Year. Recyclopedia (Graywolf, 2006) won a PEN Beyond Margins Award. Sleeping with the Dictionary (U of California, 2002) was a finalist for a National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and LA Times Book Award. The Cracks Between (U of Alabama, 2012), essays and interviews, received an Elizabeth Agee Award. Other books include Her Silver-Tongued Companion (Edinburgh U, 2024), Open Leaves (Black Sunflowers, 2023), and Urban Tumbleweed (Graywolf, 2013). She teaches literature and creative writing at UCLA.

This program is co-presented by The Brick and the UCLA College Division of Humanities in conjunction with MONUMENTS, an exhibition co-organized and co-presented by The Brick and The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA).