BROOKLYN, N.Y.—Announcement cards for “Whitney’s Biennial,” a three-day show held last weekend at C.R.E.A.M. Projects in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood, promised “free limo rides,” an after party at the nearby club COCO66, and art by MacArthur “genius” artist Kara Walker. However, after the work that the artist had agreed to contribute failed to arrive, that final item took a rather unusual form.

Visitors to the gallery found on display there a printout of an e-mail conversation between one of the show’s curators, Davida Nemeroff, and Walker stapled to the wall in lieu of a postcard that the artist said must have been lost in the mail. “I have never flaked on a show like this,” Walker wrote in her final message to Nemeroff. “My Absence and my Shame Is my piece.”

Nemeroff, who met the artist as an MFA student at Columbia, where Walker teaches, tells ARTINFO, "The fact that Kara Walker's postcard never made it is perfect. [Her] absence was definitely felt and therefore an appropriate piece."

But still, posting the e-mails, Nemeroff says, was "humiliating" for her. "I never ever assumed that anyone would read it. I basically am begging her to participate and offering to do anything." 

According to the e-mail messages on display at C.R.E.A.M., Walker had originally proposed submitting a copy of her or Barack Obama’s birth certificate for the exhibition, a reference to the “birther” movement whose members argue that president was born outside the United States. Nemeroff reportedly suggested including printouts of Facebook profiles from other Kara Walkers, but the artist demurred, saying that she would “rather contribute her own self-parody than be represented by someone else’s.” The postcard still has not arrived.

“Whitney’s Biennial,” which was curated by Martha Mysko, Elise Rasmussen, Mary Kate Maher and Davida Nemeroff and featured work by Fia Backström, Roe Ethridge, and over 30 others, closed on August 30. 

Read more at Artnet.