Articulation Theory Essay

Stuart Hall emphasizes that the popular is constantly evolving. And due to this ever-changing society, the ways in which things are perceived is changing as well. This concept, coined articulation theory, is one of the huge reasons behind artistic expression. Throughout all of history, stories, evidence, and art are forgotten, altered, or misperceived. Because so many important parts of the past are overlooked, artists and writers focus on drawing the attention of modern society to these buried antiquities. However, because the global has changed in such monumental ways, these important ideas are expressed differently. These forms of expression are represented in innovative and thought provoking, yet rather uncomfortable ways. However, the

themes of the past being dug up were extremely uncomfortable. And good art is never comfortable. In the “A Subtlety or The Marvelous Sugar Baby,” Kara Walker plays with the idea of articulation theory. She creates a piece that in the 1600s would’ve given different people different meanings. Many would’ve looked at the sphinx and seen a mode of production, others would’ve thought of the potential profit of an overwhelming amount of sugar and milk, and finally some would’ve seen the deprivation of an innocent woman, a woman deprived of her natural birthright. Surprisingly, all of these perspectives are completely accurate. Walker gives depth to the mammies and through articulation theory proves that a woman can be so much more than just a machine. **Insert a claim about how Kara Walker wants to show how one thing can mean two different things to different people but the thing still has depth and can actually be these two things**
In the 1600s sugar was a substantial global commodity.

This superior sweetener was used in various ways. However in England the confection was sculpted into people, buildings, and animals, called subtleties, and presented to reveal extreme wealth. The famous African American artist, Kara Walker, created her own, contemporary take on a subtlety. Literally named, “A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby,” this grand sculpture alludes to colonial America, the sphinxes of Egypt, and the once significant triangular trade. Constructed entirely of sugar (in fact, over 30 tons), the sphinx is grandiose to say the least. Sugar was once a sign of wealth not due to the scarcity of it, but rather because of its mal distribution. Only the richest owned sugar and they owned a lot of it. The 30 tons of refined, white sugar creates a large presence in a room so dark, on a topic so harsh. Walker satirically creates a woman typically deprived of birthrights, with a material associated with quite the opposite of deprivation, a material of superabundance. The overwhelming amount of sugar draws the gallery-goers to the captivating piece and furthermore draws them to a violent history. This literal sweet sculpture ironically represents a bitter, disturbing reality of slavery in antebellum America. Kara Walker aims to highlight the ironic choice of her material. The obnoxious amount of sugar reveals one of the roles of an Afro-American and Afro-Caribbean woman, her role as a field laborer, a producer of

profit.
The material is not the only captivating aspect of the piece. This sphinx is over five stories tall and longer than a standard football field. Walker takes up a huge portion of the enormous building, or as Patricia Yaeger would put it “reclaiming space.”
Walker creates a piece that’s hard to miss and that is exactly her point. The mammies were often overlooked despite their integral part of sustaining a plantation economy, a “black-and-white white world made from black women’s milk” (777). This grand sphinx provides justice for all those mammies that went unrecognized for their sustenance and crucial role. An ode to all those mammies turned into modes of production. She also employs the artistic technique of foreshortening to highlight certain anatomical parts of the mammy, most noticeably her enormous breasts. Not only do their huge size make them no longer unnoticeable, but they also characterize a typical black mammy. Additionally, the mammy’s genitalia are also enlarged. This reveals the sexuality associated with her and her role as a producer of future slaves in order to keep the plantation in business. Walker highlights the second responsibility of the slave woman, through her enlarged features. This is her mother-like role as a reproducer and a provider of sustenance for future children. Walker continues to play with size in contrast between the sphinx and the surrounding sculptures. The surrounding children are significantly smaller in comparison to the mammy. Walker plays with this idea in order to draw attention to how smaller figures in history are often overlooked. Just as the molasses is crucial in creating sugar, the young slave children were equally important in sustaining the plantation. However, many of these children went unrecognized. Most of the gallery-goers went straight to the main attraction without giving a second thought to smaller sculptures of children.
Another attribute that makes this gallery unique is the location. The old Domino sugar factory was once home to a thriving, profitable industry. Reflecting back on Stuart Hall’s idea of articulation theory, this building evokes a different mood than it did in its glory days. Originally it was a place of superabundance, profit, greatness, and a mask of the sugar plantations. This artist transforms the space in order to remove that mask, to cause viewers to reflect on what their economy was built from. Formerly a place of grandeur, now perceived as a place of harshness. Kara Walker directly causes the shift explained through articulation theory. She provides a third and final view of the black woman. By choosing a run down location originally built with the funds from extorting slaves, Walker emphasizes the brutality of the life as a plantation worker and the super-deprivation that comes with it. Just as this mammy literally lives in the home sugar industry, many black women were bound to a similar life unable to escape from the grueling, depriving slave society. Many women were born into the slave and sugar industry, grew up in it and eventually died in it. Due to its obsolescence this “Marvelous Sugar Baby” was born and will die in this sugar industry unable to escape.
Super-deprivation and superabundance are two seemingly opposite ideas. One refers to extreme scarcity, while the other indicates plentiful bounty. However, these two concepts are often seen together to highlight how the contradictious nature creates a vicious cycle. As Patricia Yaeger puts it, “flesh [was] made into profit, loss [was] made into productivity, productivity [was] made into cinnamon, cotton, coffee, sugar, tobacco to be traded for more European goods so the cycle could begin again (774).” It became a cycle of superabundance. However, these plentiful resources were mal-distributed and therefore caused deprivation within that very same society. The Americas were built on the excess of triangular trade, the trade manufactured products, of natural resources, of people. “Death, exhaustion, and alienated labor” were the source the nation’s surplus (793). Superabundance was literally established by the deprived. Just as superabundance and super-deprivation coexisted in a colonial society, they existed in Kara Walker’s innovative piece. Through the copious amounts of sugar used, the over the top scale, and the enormous factory once filled with workers and sugar, Walker is able to once again make superabundance and super deprivation coincide simultaneously. In a sense Walker is not only reclaiming space, but also reclaiming and altering her people’s history. Just as Hall’s articulation theory explains how one object can have different meanings in different circumstances, Walker explains the very different responsibilities and perspectives of a mammy. From a deprived woman in almost every sense to a machine to a mother, the mammy was a complex role with different meanings in different circumstances.