By Gina McKlveen
To view the works by Kara Walker currently on display at The Frick Museum of Pittsburgh until May 25, 2025, can be described as, “Enlightening,” according to KEA, a local Pittsburgh performer, singer-songwriter, and visual artist. “It opened up a whole new horizon for me,” she added. That new horizon included an intimate evening of music at The Frick Museum, a first of its kind experience for KEA, pairing the songs of Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield, and Marvin Gaye, among others along with her own personal music and poetry, in conversation with the racial history of America addressed by Walker’s artwork exhibited throughout the museum.
“Kara Walker’s art invites viewers to confront uncomfortable truths and the complex relationship between the past and present,” explained Dawn R Brean, Chief Curator and Director of Collections at The Frick Museum.
Inviting musicians to fill the museum with sounds in response to the art on view is something The Frick Museum has welcomed into its space often during its recent exhibits. It adds elements of collaboration, commentary, and community within the art scene in Pittsburgh that is more refreshing than simply seeing the art or hearing the music separately—though inspiring on their own, together there are more layers and contexts to be explored, much like Walker’s artwork.
On March 29, 2025, KEA graced the stage at The Frick Museum alongside Gary K., on the strings, and George C. Jones on the congas. Her powerful performance included an original poem, she titled “Unapologetic Freedom,” describing the struggles of Black Americans from the Civil War, to the Civil Rights Movement, to modern-day, where the line of her poem, “equality and our livelihood was at stake,” dwelled over the audience in deep reflection of the current political climate. KEA also gave voice to one of her top-charting songs, “Holla If You Hear Me” which she impressively wrote in just over 10 minutes, and released in 2020 following the death of George Floyd, hoping to inspire change for Black Americans. In her soul-filled sounds, she sang, “Change is needed now,” and “One thing and one person at a time.”
According to Brean, “The Kara Walker exhibition is a continuation of a larger Frick initiative to reexamine history with a contemporary lens. This is perhaps best seen in our new, reinterpreted tour of Clayton, the historic home of the Fricks. The new tour titled Gilded, Not Golden strives to learn from the Gilded Age and open dialogue on how we still feel the effects of that era in our everyday life today.”
Brean continued, “The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era laid the foundation for the Gilded Age, a time when industrialists, like Henry Clay Frick, amassed immense fortunes. As a Gilded Age historic site, I find it so illuminating to reflect on our nation’s history, how it shaped and continues to shape our present day. The issues central to that time—citizenship, industry, voting rights, power and wealth inequalities—are still relevant today. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if a newspaper headline is from yesterday or 1892. Kara Walker’s work engages with these themes in such profound ways, drawing powerful connections between the past and present. Contemporary artists in particular have the power to humanize complex issues and draw these connections in such engaging ways. Kara Walker’s work is a great example of that power.”
KEA’s vocals in concert with Walker’s work were uniquely powerful and moving. When speaking about the inspirations that have had the power to move her, KEA expressed, “I draw my inspiration, number one, from the community and from the struggle. It’s about the strength within that struggle.” She described her early musical inspirations, which she also found in her parents.
“I grew up in the inner city, a Black neighborhood here in Pittsburgh and my parents were married at the time, and I’d seen my Dad going through so much, working and having to deal with issues at work because of the color of his skin. My parents, both being musical people, my Dad being a guitar player and a singer, introducing my Mom being a violist. They showed me different genres of music.”
Specifically, KEA recalled hearing her mother play Marvin Gaye’s song “What’s Going On” and she did not understand why her mother was crying. Years later, KEA, who balances her career in music while being a single mother, keenly understands her mother’s tears, and is equally inspired by Marvin Gaye and her own children.
Of her own music KEA expressed, “I’ve honed myself as somebody who speaks about struggles, issues, relationship struggles that most people don’t want to talk about, but I tackle it.”
Not shying away from the tough subjects sums up Walker’s works as well. Through the use of strategic artistic silhouettes overlaid atop enlarged renditions of Harper’s Weekly, pictorial drawings depicting scenes from the Civil War across mainly southern territories of the United States, Walker highlights racial inequality and the repugnance of slavery in stark black and white prints. The layered nature of Walker’s prints invites viewers to confront the positive and negative spaces of the artwork and the history. A few of Walker’s pieces also depict layers within layers, like a female silhouette within a male silhouette, and a boy within man, to further the conversation around gender inequality and generational disparities.
“The visual disruption of her black silhouettes silkscreened on the surface of Winslow Homer’s illustrations brings to the surface a silenced history of violence that is absent from the initial narrative. We decided to include a content warning so visitors could prepare themselves to encounter images that might be graphic or emotionally overwhelming,” said Brean.
Brean also explained, “What makes our showing of this exhibition particularly unique is the inclusion of bound copies of Harper’s Weekly from the Civil War years that are typically housed in the Clayton library. These original editions from our collection are presented alongside Walker’s work, inviting further dialogue between historical and contemporary perspectives and how artists serve as a witness to American history—as it unfolds and in its aftermath. We booked this exhibition several years ago (museums are often planning exhibitions years out) so this show became even more timely in a way we never anticipated. But that shows that Walker’s work is more urgent than ever. We will continue to engage in an open and honest exploration of the past, in all its depth and complexity.”
Planned or unplanned, the presence of these pieces at The Frick Museum clearly could not have come at a more poignant time.
KEA’s contribution gave a certain light to the darkness that is much needed in this moment. “Music is hope. Music is support,” the singer stated, “During my darkest days and darkest times that’s all I had, was music to help me through. It’s all about hope, it’s all about ‘Let’s help the people.’”
Giving voice to the people of Pittsburgh is another thing The Frick Museum inherently values. “Over a dozen Pittsburgh community members—artists, professors, and local leaders—accepted our invitation to contribute guest labels to deepen the conversation. We are grateful for their insights and the rich dialogue they’ve helped foster; that isn’t possible when there is only the ‘museum’ voice represented in the labels,” Brean reflected.
Through art and music, The Frick Museum’s Kara Walker: Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) exhibition is changing the community—for the better—one viewer at a time.
To purchase tickets to see the exhibition visit, https://tickets.thefrickpittsburgh.org/ActivityBooking.aspx. Gallery Conversations and Guided Tours are scheduled periodically from now until May 25, 2025.
To hear more of KEA’s music to accompany your own visit to this exhibition, follow her on social media: Instagram @musicbykea, Facebook @Kea; and YouTube @KeaTV.
-GM
