{"type":"artobject","objectid":108197,"objectnumber":"2015-9 a-e","sortnumber":"2015    9 a    e","displaytitle":"The Means to an End ... a Shadow Drama in Five Acts","department":"Prints and Drawings","classification":"Prints","datebegin":1995,"dateend":1995,"datecomputed":1995,"daterange":"A.D. 1945-present","displaydate":"1995","medium":"Hard-ground etching and aquatint","dimensions":"sheet (each): 83.8 × 64.1 cm (33 × 25 1/4 in.)\r\nframe (each, a & e): 95.5 × 65 × 4.5 cm (37 5/8 × 25 9/16 × 1 3/4 in.)\r\nframe (b-d): 65.5 x 63.5 x 4.5 cm\r\nOverall: 81.9 × 295.9 cm (32 1/4 × 116 1/2 in.)","dimensionsproposed":"","creditline":"Museum purchase, Felton Gibbons Fund","markings":null,"inscribed":"Handwritten in graphite, along top of (b): RTP / A Means to An End\r\nHandwritten in graphite, along top of (c): A Shadow Drama in Five Acts","signed":"Signed and dated on (d), upper left: Kara Walker 1995","catalograisonne":null,"creditlinerepro":"© Kara Walker","restrictions":"Restricted","nowebuse":"False","secondaryobjectnumber":"","campuscollections":"false","on_view":false,"accessionyear":"2015-01-01","newaccession":0,"titles":[{"title":"The Means to an End ... a Shadow Drama in Five Acts","titletype":"Primary Title","displayorder":1}],"makers":[{"id":14047,"displayname":"Landfall Press, Inc.","displaydate":"American, founded 1970","datebegin":1970,"dateend":0,"prefix":"Published by","suffix":null,"role":"Publisher","displaymaker":"Published by Landfall Press, Inc., American, founded 1970","displayorder":3},{"id":19271,"displayname":"Steve Campbell","displaydate":null,"datebegin":0,"dateend":0,"prefix":"Printed by","suffix":null,"role":"Printer","displaymaker":"Printed by Steve Campbell","displayorder":2},{"id":2251,"displayname":"Kara Walker","displaydate":"born1969; Stockton, CA; active New York, NY","datebegin":1969,"dateend":2100,"prefix":null,"suffix":null,"role":"Artist","displaymaker":"Kara Walker, born1969; Stockton, CA; active New York, NY","displayorder":1}],"depicted":[],"texts":[{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Description","textentryhtml":"Like much of Walker's early work, <i>The Means to an End... A Shadow Drama in Five Acts</i> evokes the medium of cut-paper silhouettes popular in nineteenth-century America, but expanded in scale to fill a wall. According to the artist, the prints present &quot;a panoramic view of an Antebellum swampland wherein mythic and stereotypic characters, Negro and otherwise, respond to outrageous demands with benign passivity. Illicit sex and violence are suggested as the means by which freedom is attained. The Master/slave narrative is expanded and inverted to include authoritarian control over children, the landscape and the self. From left to right this suite of aquatints reads like the table of contents in a romantic novel: The Beginning, The Hunt, The Chase, The Plunge, The End. The remainder of the story is couched in polite silence--the kind of silence which harbors racism, distrust, fear and intense and obsessive love.&quot;\n","remarks":null}],"media":[{"id":206476,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/PUAMSTU2016_43161","isprimary":0,"rank":1,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"PUAM photo"},{"id":206477,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/PUAMSTU2016_43166","isprimary":0,"rank":2,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"PUAM photo"},{"id":206478,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/PUAMSTU2016_43168","isprimary":0,"rank":3,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"PUAM photo"},{"id":206479,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/PUAMSTU2016_43171","isprimary":0,"rank":4,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"PUAM photo"},{"id":206480,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/PUAMSTU2016_43175","isprimary":0,"rank":5,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"PUAM photo"},{"id":192977,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/YF1V9630","isprimary":1,"rank":32,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"PUAM photo"}],"hasimage":"true","bibliography":[{"boilertext":"Joseph Ruzicka, <EM>Landfall Press: Twenty-Five Years of Printmaking</EM> (Milwaukee: Milwaukee Art Museum, 1996)","citation":"Joseph Ruzicka, <EM>Landfall Press: Twenty-Five Years of Printmaking</EM> (Milwaukee: Milwaukee Art Museum, 1996), p. 79, p. 216","date":1996,"id":3500,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/35955266"},{"boilertext":"\"Walker Skirmish\", <EM>Art on paper</EM> 4, no. 2 (Nov.-Dec., 1999).","citation":"\"Walker Skirmish\", <EM>Art on paper</EM> 4, no. 2 (Nov.-Dec., 1999)., p. 22-23 (illus.)","date":1999,"id":3501,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/39848252"},{"boilertext":"Annette Dixon, ed.,&nbsp;<em>Kara Walker: Pictures from Another Time</em> (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Art, 2002)","citation":"Annette Dixon, ed.,&nbsp;<em>Kara Walker: Pictures from Another Time</em> (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Art, 2002)","date":2002,"id":3502,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/50903794"},{"boilertext":"Gwendolyn Dubois Shaw, \"Censorship and Reaction\", from <EM>Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker</EM> (Duke University Press, 2004)","citation":"Gwendolyn Dubois Shaw, \"Censorship and Reaction\", from <EM>Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker</EM> (Duke University Press, 2004), fig. 25","date":2004,"id":3503,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/55008318"},{"boilertext":"\"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2015,\" <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University</em> 75/76 (2016-17): 102-125.","citation":"\"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2015,\" <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University</em> 75/76 (2016-17): 102-125., p. 125 (illus.)","date":2016,"id":9661,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/i40228781"}],"exhibitions":[{"exhibitionid":3365,"citation":"Making History Visible: Of American Myths and National Heroes (Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - Sunday, January 14, 2018)","isvirtual":true,"begindate":"2017-09-26","enddate":"2018-01-14","uri":"https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/exhibitions/3365"}],"geography":[{"displaygeography":"Place made: North America, United States","code":"Place made","continent":"North America","subcontinent":null,"country":"United States","region":null,"state":null,"city":null,"county":null,"subregion":null,"locale":null,"locus":null,"river":null,"excavation":null,"geoname":"http://www.geonames.org/6252001/united-states.html","location":{"lat":"","lon":""}}],"terms":[{"id":2088280,"term":"women","aatid":300025943,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2038492,"term":"American","aatid":300107956,"termtype":"Culture"},{"id":2088151,"term":"children (people by age group)","aatid":300025945,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2051503,"term":"silhouettes","aatid":300015423,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2041274,"term":"antebellum","aatid":300193796,"termtype":"Period / Style"},{"id":2055657,"term":"figures (representations)","aatid":300189808,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2088162,"term":"infants","aatid":300189561,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2100198,"term":"slavery","aatid":300055309,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2055694,"term":"landscapes (representations)","aatid":300015636,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2088270,"term":"men","aatid":300025928,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2103919,"term":"dogs","aatid":null,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2054569,"term":"etchings","aatid":300041365,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2054573,"term":"aquatints","aatid":300041366,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2054256,"term":"prints","aatid":300041273,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2156299,"term":"mounting","aatid":300081370,"termtype":"Techniques"},{"id":2171229,"term":"hard ground","aatid":300183810,"termtype":"Materials"},{"id":2154976,"term":"etching (printing process)","aatid":300053241,"termtype":"Techniques"},{"id":2154980,"term":"aquatint","aatid":300053242,"termtype":"Techniques"}],"classifications":[{"id":2054569,"classification":"etchings"},{"id":2054573,"classification":"aquatints"},{"id":2054256,"classification":"prints"}],"cultures":[],"cultureterms":[{"id":2038492,"culture":"American"}],"periods":[],"periodterms":[{"id":2041274,"period":"antebellum"}],"attribute_groups":[{"id":2199324,"term":"Art Since 1945","termtype":"Collecting Area"},{"id":2199325,"term":"North American Art","termtype":"Collecting Area"},{"id":2199327,"term":"Prints and Drawings","termtype":"Collecting Area"}],"dimensionelements":[{"element":"Overall","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"81.91"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"295.90"},{"element":"sheet","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"83.81"},{"element":"sheet","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"64.13"},{"element":"frame","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"95.50"},{"element":"frame","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"65.00"},{"element":"frame","type":"Depth","units":"centimeters","dimension":"4.50"}],"packages":[{"packageid":206417,"name":"image_descriptions_top250"},{"packageid":208930,"name":"2022_ART451_04_14"},{"packageid":2929,"name":"Web_RecentAcq"},{"packageid":181661,"name":"CRS_2020_ART214_04_14&16-17"},{"packageid":181782,"name":"CRS_2020_FRS176_04_15"},{"packageid":220938,"name":"web_2000-2022printacquisitions"},{"packageid":195744,"name":"PUAM_Women in Art"},{"packageid":224504,"name":"2023_ART565/GSS566_03_07"},{"packageid":203601,"name":"web_DarknessandLight"}],"primaryimage":["https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/YF1V9630"],"displaymaker":"Kara Walker, born1969; Stockton, CA; active New York, NY | Printed by Steve Campbell | Published by Landfall Press, Inc., American, founded 1970","displayculture":null,"displayperiod":null,"caption":"Kara Walker (born1969; Stockton, CA; active New York, NY), Printed by Steve Campbell, Published by Landfall Press, Inc. (American, founded 1970), The Means to an End ... a Shadow Drama in Five Acts, 1995. Hard-ground etching and aquatint; 83.8 × 64.1 cm (sheet, each), 95.5 × 65 × 4.5 cm (frame, each), 81.9 × 295.9 cm (Overall). Museum purchase, Felton Gibbons Fund (2015-9 a-e)","captionhtml":"Kara Walker (born1969; Stockton, CA; active New York, NY), Printed by Steve Campbell, Published by Landfall Press, Inc. (American, founded 1970), <i>The Means to an End ... a Shadow Drama in Five Acts</i>, 1995. Hard-ground etching and aquatint; 83.8 × 64.1 cm (sheet, each), 95.5 × 65 × 4.5 cm (frame, each), 81.9 × 295.9 cm (Overall). Museum purchase, Felton Gibbons Fund (2015-9 a-e)","published_date":"2026-03-31 03:20:38.872961","campusart":[{"campuscollections":"false","campusart":0,"neighborhood":null,"lat":null,"lon":null}],"extended_content":false}