I suddenly remembered Kara Walker’s installation of sugar sculptures last weekend and rushed to the Domino Sugar Refining Plant in Brooklyn to catch it.
Called A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby – an Homage to the Unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant, it left me a bit confused.
I knew the US didn’t grow sugarcane. What I didn’t know was that the Domino Sugar Refining Plant, which was built in 1856, was by 1870 processing 3 million pounds of sugar each day – more than half the sugar used in the U.S. – from sugar that was shipped there from around the world.
The plant, which is located on an 11-acre spread on the East River, and employed 4-5,000 people, ceased operation in 2004 and is now slated for demolition. Luxury residential units with spectacular waterfront views of Manhattan will sit in its place.
Walker, who is well known for her black cut-paper silhouettes, makes good use of the plant’s expansive space and 10-story high ceilings to construct the centerpiece of the exhibition: a massive 35-foot tall sphinx made from 4 tons of white sugar. Its face made me think of Aunt Jemima, its body a cat.
The other sculptures were of children – sugar-coated babies – toting straw baskets of the raw sweetener.
A Subtlety is thought provoking and smelly. The unmistakable aroma of carmelizing sugar, of cut sugar cane baking under a tropical sun took me back to my childhood on my family’s sugar cane farm. I left with more questions than answers. Several days later and I’m still processing the images I saw, the messages they conveyed to me.
A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby is on view weekends only until July 6 at the Domino Sugar Refining Plant, South 1st Street at Kent Avenue in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. It is free and open to the public. There was a line when we went on Sunday but it seemed to move quickly. Go early and take a hat to shade you from the sun.
Linking up this week with Travel Photo Thursday that Nancie organizes. Be sure to stop by to see other photos from locations around the world.
