The past and present collapse in this piece, beginning with its title, which invokes Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. Alongside depictions of recognizable figures like Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr., the crowd teems with Klansmen, riot police, slaves, and soldiers; both American and confederate flags are flown. Some figures jump or dance, as if animated by a misplaced feeling of merriment. Near the work’s upper edge, the mass of bodies culminates with a lynched man flanked by a pair of irreverent trapeze artists. By arranging myriad historical figures and forces on a single plane, Walker generates a version of history that is complex and nonlinear, merging various moments from the past into an atemporal coexistence

Gallery label from

2019

Medium Ink and pencil on paper, cut-and-pasted on painted paper
Dimensions 140 1/2 × 196" (356.9 × 497.8 cm)
Credit Acquired through the generosity of Agnes Gund, the Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Carol and Morton Rapp, Marnie Pillsbury, the Contemporary Drawing and Print Associates, and Committee on Drawings and Prints Fund
Object number 198.2018
Department Drawings and Prints

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