Kara Walker

Lower East Side Printshop collaborated with artist Kara Walker on Testimony, suite of five photogravure, during the artist's Publishing Residency Program in 2004.

Walker selected five stills from her 2004 video, Testimony: Narrative of a Negress, Burdened by Good Fortune. A silent, slightly grainy, black-and-white stop-animation work reminiscent of early film, the narrative follows the chaos of a white slave revolt against their black overseers. Walker controlled the characters herself,  moving them around until they eventually destroyed each other in a violent fury.  

For this suite of prints,titled Testimony, Walker chose the photogravure process to enhance the deep, velvety texture of the shadow silhouettes.   She selected five stills from the film and digitally manipulated them. Lothar Osterburg produced and steelfaced the plates. The prints were editioned at the Printshop with the custom made black etching ink by Graphic Chemical and Charbonnel.