Booker's exhibition "Shaved Portions" opened at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis.
On September 30, 2010, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis opened Chakaia Booker: Shaved Portions, a focused exhibition presenting a curated selection of the artist's sculptural works. The exhibition emphasized her ongoing exploration of surface, texture, and material transformation — key preoccupations that had defined her practice since the late 1980s.
Unlike expansive outdoor sculpture park presentations, this exhibition offered an intimate, academically-situated context for viewers, including students and scholars, to engage closely with the formal and conceptual details of Booker's work. The title, Shaved Portions, referenced her technique of carving, layering, and manipulating tire rubber to reveal varied textures — from smooth to jagged, striated to woven — within a single sculptural form.
Presenting her work within a university gallery context reinforced Booker's standing not only among museum-going publics but also within academic discourse on contemporary sculpture, material culture, and African American artistic practice. The exhibition contributed to a broader wave of institutional attention Booker received during this period, coinciding with her continued national and international visibility as one of the foremost sculptors working with reclaimed rubber tires.