Continue playing
(Time remaining: )
Play from beginning
Continue playing "{{ controller.videos[controller.getVideo(controller.currentVideo)].segmentParentTitle}}"
{{controller.videos[controller.getVideo(controller.currentVideo)].title}} has ended.
On MuseumsKerry James Marshall
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.”
More information and creditsCredits
Producer: Wesley Miller and Nick Ravich. Camera & Sound: Nick Ravich. Editor: Mary Ann Toman. Artwork Courtesy: Kerry James Marshall. Thanks: Jack Shainman Gallery.
Closed captionsAvailable in English, German, Romanian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian
Through the Art21 Translation Project, multilingual audiences from around the globe can contribute translations, making Art21 films more accessible worldwide. Translate this video now.
Interested in showing this film in an exhibition or public screening? To license this video please visit Licensing & Reproduction.
The subject matter of Kerry James Marshall’s paintings, installations, and public projects is often drawn from African American popular culture, and is rooted in the geography of his upbringing. Marshall’s work is based on a broad range of art-historical references, from Renaissance painting to black folk art, from El Greco to Charles White. A striking aspect of Marshall’s paintings is the emphatically black skin tone of his figures—a development the artist says emerged from an investigation into the invisibility of Black people in America and the unnecessarily negative connotations associated with darkness. The sheer beauty of his work speaks to an art that is simultaneously formally rigorous and socially engaged.
“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
Kerry James Marshall
Kerry James Marshall
Inspired by the Classics
Rackstraw Downes
Eleanor Antin