Kerry James Marshall: On Museums
Seen installing his 2008 exhibition “Black Romantic” at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, Kerry James Marshall confronts art institutions—and the canon of Western Art in general—about the unignorable absence of Black artists.
“At some point you become acutely aware of your absence in the whole historical timeline that develops this narrative of mastery,” says Marshall. “We take it for granted that this is just the way art history has been structured.”
Credits
Producer: Wesley Miller and Nick Ravich. Camera & Sound: Nick Ravich. Editor: Mary Ann Toman. Artwork Courtesy: Kerry James Marshall. Thanks: Jack Shainman Gallery.
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Kerry James Marshall was born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama, and currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. The artist was educated at Otis Art Institute, where he received a BFA in 1978 and an honorary doctorate in 1999. In his work, Marshall interrogates Western art history, recontextualizing the canon to include themes and imagery that have been historically excluded. Through his paintings, drawings, installations, and public works, the artist builds a body of work that privileges the Black figure, using race, history, and everyday Black experiences as the inspiration for his work.
“There are institutions that everybody recognizes as being the best, and you know that you’re not controlling them. So you got to keep asking the people who are controlling them to let you in.”
Kerry James Marshall
Kerry James Marshall
“Vignettes”
Kerry James Marshall discusses his relationship to museums during the installation of the exhibition Black Romantic at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, which features five paintings from the artist’s Vignettes (2003-07) series.
