Kara Walker

One of our favorite local art blogs — the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth’s — pretty much stopped dead this spring. We especially missed any fresh additions to what had become a signature series of behind-the-scenes photos on the Modern’s flickr page: images of contemporary sculptures getting reconstituted by construction crews and museum staff. Cultural barn-raisings, as it were.

But now the blog is back — they’ve been preparing for the remarkable and controversial work of Kara Walker: Her large-scale cut-paper silhouettes are known for their often grotesque and explicit treatments of racial slavery, sex and violence. Opening July 11, Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love is the “first, full-scale American museum survey” of Walker’s work, including film animations (it ran at the Whitney last year). We’d be curious to see any ‘Kara Walker installing her work’ photos they might put up.

So when it comes to online attractions, the Modern is becoming the very model of a modern art museum. Not only is the blog back, it’s promising more material, the better to supplement the gallery show and help prepare the public for the shock. There’s a book club, Summer Reading: From the Artist’s Library — the reading list features three novels: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Known World by Edward P. Jones and Beloved by Toni Morrison, and the book club’s programs will be podcast. There’s also the Modern’s twitter updates as well as its popular myspace page.

Which already has more than 4,000 friends.

We are jealous and will now go off to lunch to pout.