Kara Walker (born 1969 in California) transforms exhibition spaces into epic panoramas made of black silhouettes. With almost life-size paper cutouts, drawings and gouaches, the Afro-American artist develops picture stories with which she draws on the slave stories from the time before the civil war in the southern United States. Black and white people in historical robes populate the scenarios, which are initially reminiscent of fairy tale illustrations and decorative genre scenes from the Biedermeier era, but on second glance reveal grotesque and bestial acts of sex and violence. The stage-like and finely contoured shadow worlds of the artist are always ambiguous. Between seduction and drama, between ornament and abstraction, they aim both subversively and razor sharp at the center of our stereotypical fantasies. This first major publication by the artist gives a comprehensive impression of her work.