Art Fact Friday #5 August 25th 2023 Kerry James Marshall

Kerry James Marshall creates paintings & prints of Black figures, investigating  the United States relationship to  African American Culture. His pop-culture images elevate the chronicles of traditional painting. Born October 17, 1955 Birmingham, Alabama. He earned a BFA at the Otis Art Institute in L.A.,CA,1978. Followed by a residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC.

"Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self" 1980 separated him from Prior works in collage. he moved to Chicago in 1987. Starting in 1993, he taught for several years at the University of Illinois at Chicago,1997 receiving a John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.” A professor at the U of I, Chicago School of Art and Design 1993 -2006. Marshall contrasts popular ideals of black beauty in, Untitled (La Venus Negra) 1992 Housed in the Honolulu Museum of Art Untitled (Supermodel) (1994),illustrates a blond black woman emulating Caucasian models. He combats  classic perceptions of a goddess speaking  Black identity. The Lost Boys (1993–1995) depicts the lives of  African Americans. The portraits show young boys' early loss of innocence and effects ghettos.  The Garden Project a series of housing projects amplifying the Eden-like imagery, showing African Americans finding happiness & unifying despite the reality & conditions in public housing. Many Mansions,1994, examines the reality of living in  Stateway Gardens. The figures of the impoverished black men are set in a bountiful and cheerful landscape.  Marshall's Souvenir series is an archive of deaths of leaders in politics, literature, arts, & music. He looks to examine the loss dealt to American society. Souvenir III, 1998, depicts an angel as the caretaker of the living room's arrangements. Establishing a new rhetoric of black people in America, highlighting their differences from conventional white power structures. Souvenir IV (1998), also a middle-class living room referencing his family's home, the scene echoes Egyptian rituals and the afterlife. Souvenir III and IV are grisaille , Souvenir I and II (1997) are done in color.  He is included in  the 1999/2000 Carnegie International Exhibition & the 2003 Venice Biennale. In 2013,President Barack Obama added him to the  Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. 2017, Murals of Acceptance  commissioned him  to create a mural. "Rush More." s an homage to Chicago's female cultural icons. Marshall was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In 2018 Past Times (1997) was sold by Chicago's Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority to Sean Combs for $21 million.  

References

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/chi-chicago-artist-picked-for-presidential-panel-20131119-story.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_James_Marshall https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.35534.html