Kerry James Marshall: Civil Rights, and Strong Canvases
Kerry James Marshall Souvenir 1997 Courtesy and © Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
This spring, acclaimed Chicago artist Kerry James Marshall opened his first Canadian solo exhibition, which surveys highlights from a solid 25-year practice. Co-curated by Jeff Wall and Kathleen Bartels for the Vancouver Art Gallery, the exhibition offers north-of-the-border viewers a chance to take in Marshall’s beautiful—and often politically pointed—large-scale paintings. From his breakthrough Garden Projects series of the early 90s (which portrayed the vandalized utopias of US public housing projects) to recent Vignettes that address romantic traditions in art history, Marshall consistently combines deep visual acuity and dextrous compositions with a moral conviction to make people of colour more visible in Western art. One branch of his work is no doubt biographical—after all, Marshall was raised in the civil rights hotspots of Birmingham, Alabama, and Watts, California. (One series of works in the Vancouver show, Souvenir, speaks explicitly to this history, commemorating civil rights heroes like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy in striking monochromatic tableaux.) Yet Marshall’s interest is also strongly intellectual; as online interview videos show, the past MacArthur Fellow is extremely articulate about his experiences as a painter, as a person of colour in the art world and as an analyst of the historical contexts for same. In the end, what distinguishes Marshall is what distinguishes any other great artist: a love for the visual, an awareness of its shortcomings, and the vast talent and work ethic required to attempt mending any subsequent divide. (750 Hornby St, Vancouver BC)
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Kerry James Marshall Better Homes, Better Gardens 1994 Courtesy Denver Art Museum |
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Kerry James Marshall Untitled 2008 Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery New York |
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