Kerry James Marshall - Past Times (detail), 1997
My first encounter with Kerry James Marshall's work was at the Palacio de Velazquez art gallery in Retiro Park, Madrid in 2014. Kerry James Marshall: Painting and Other stuff was a wonderful retrospective of mostly smaller works and a good introduction to his figurative paintings depicting Black Americans just living their day-to-day lives. It was a surprise to see these figures with an uncompromisingly black skin tone taking centre stage in important works of art. I've featured Marshall's work on a couple of occasions since, here, and here, where I actually got to meet the artist. This exhibition Kerry James Marshall: The Histories, celebrating the artists 70th birthday is a much more ambitious affair than the Madrid exhibition, taking over the Main Galleries of the Royal Academy of Art. Marshall's paintings are an attempt to redress the balance in art. He is reimagining the Western tradition of history painting by placing Black figures at the heart of large-scale paintings, making those who were previously absent or marginalised, reduced to subservient roles much more visible. With regard to the blackness of his subjects skin tone Marshall states "I try to make the black paints that I use as complex as any other colour that would be on the palette. I can have at least eight or nine different variations on the colour black and I can use those different variations of black to model the figure, to give the figures volume, so that they don't read just as flat... these figures have dimensions, and those differences, dramatically make a huge difference in the way people perceive the image in the picture." Marshall attempts to show that black can be just as rich and deep as any other colour in the spectrum. His compositions are composed of many different kinds of black. Mars black is used to read as red, whilst Carbon black is a darker, deeper black like oil. the addition of red, green and violets give the figures an added depth and texture. Marshall uses the figures and their blackness to address big themes central to the Black experience such as the Middle Passage, and the civil rights and Black Power movements. Also depicted in the artists works are key Black figures in history such as Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner and Martin Luther King Jr. The opening room of the show begins with a look at how Marshall references academic art history and the act of painting itself, making the black figure central to these themes as both artist and model in an art studio setting in a way which has rarely been seen before and possibly not on the scale of those painted here. These black figures firmly assert their rights to be artists.The next room displays important works in Marshall's development as an artist. Included are A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self. This is an important painting in that it a black figure on a black background with just the whites of his eyes, teeth and shirt showing, almost like a stereotypical caricature of black peoples. The Invisible Man painting taking its title from the 1952 novel by Ralph Ellison goes even further reducing the figure to just white eyes and teeth on a black background perfectly rendering the black man as invisible, mirroring the racially divided America of the time where white society refused to see him/black people. This breakthrough led to the development of the "super black" figures that Marshall is renowned for portraying in his mature works. Marshall is known for the ambition and scale of his bigger paintings, and has wanted to be a history painter equating himself with the greats of art like Giotto and Géricault stating 'I think it is important for a Black artist to create Black figure paintings in the grand tradition'. Included in the exhibition are several huge paintings such as The Lost Boys and De Style, which he considers his breakthrough paintings, as well as the large 1995 commission for the City of Chicago Public Art Programand the Chicago Public Library entitled Knowledge and Wonder which has never been loaned before. It was a good experience to see the Royal Academy be brave enough to showcase the work of a single black artist in this way. Marshall is an important black painter representing the rich history of black culture on his own terms, rejecting the racial hierarchies of traditional Western painting which has always valued lightness of skin colour. Marshall and his art are the epitome of the Ralph Ellison quote from Invisible Man which goes - "Play the game, but don't believe in it - that much you owe yourself ... Play the game, but raise the ante, my boy. Learn how it operates, learn how you operate."
Kerry James Marshall: The Histories
until 18th January
Royal Academy of Arts
Burlington House
Piccadilly
London
W1J
