LONGFORM: Kerry James Marshall Brings Black Figures From The Margin
Louisiana Channel
10.18.2019
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“One of the ways you can bring the black figure from the margin to the center in relationship to that art history is to use those classical models as a structure and as a frame and place the black figure in a picture that operates on the same terms that those pictures do.” — Kerry James Marshall
Happy birthday to Kerry James Marshall, who was born on October 17, 1955, in Birmingham, Alabama. Considered one of the greatest painters of his generation, his career is framed by the tension between resisting being labeled a “black artist” and his work to insert black people into the center of the narrative of painting. In 2016-2017, the highly acclaimed Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, a 35-year retrospective of Marshall’s work, was organized and presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, shedding new light on the range and importance of this great artist.
In this powerful, wide-ranging interview with the Louisiana Channel from 2014, Marshall covers a lot of ground: from his childhood witnessing the civil rights battles of Birmingham and South Central Los Angeles, the influence of Ellison’s Invisible Man and painter Charles White, and black liberation, to descriptions of the specific art-historical inspirations for his own works.
