Kerry James Marshall. - book review

African Arts, Winter, 2001 by Catherine Bernard

Kerry James Marshall, Terrie Sultan, and Arthur Jaffa Harry N. Abrams, New York, 2000. 128 pp., 42 b/w & 68 color photos, chronology, bibliography. $29.95 hardcover.

The most notable quality of this book is how it successfully conveys Kerry James Marshall's love of painting. One shares in the pleasure Marshall takes in historical research and in communicating his passion for African American culture, ancient art history, popular films, and music, interests that are expressed in his impeccably crafted paintings.

Kerry James Marshall gives a full account of the work of this mid-career African American artist, a 1997 recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Grant, who is best known for his large-scale historical paintings. The book brings a wealth of arguments to questions of racial and social encoding and historical definitions of identity, themes that have been dominant in the art world for more than two decades. It includes a foreword by the artist, an essay by Terrie Sultan, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Corcoran Gallery; a conversation between the writer, cinematographer, and painter Arthur Jaffa and the artist; and a concluding text by Marshall called "Notes on Career and Work." The texts complement numerous color plates and black-and-white reproductions ranging from examples of student work in the early 1970s to Rhythm Mastr in 2000, a site-specific installation using comics-based iconography and format.

The essay, dialogue, and biographical notes provide complementary viewpoints about Marshall's work and career. They reveal the diverse strategies used by the artist to appropriate historical narratives and images; these models, interwoven with accounts of personal history, convey the transforming aspects of African American culture. The analysis also underlines the broad scope of Marshall's research and creative processes and uncovers the insatiable curiosity that characterizes his quest for beauty.

Indeed, in his foreword Marshall bluntly states the importance of such refreshingly old-fashioned questions as What is art? What is beauty?, and he presents them--along with the search for clarity and vision--as cornerstones of his artistic engagement. He defines beauty as "an understanding of the relationship between the parts," which directly points to theories of composition taught by Renaissance masters, a source Marshall readily acknowledges. His quest for a visual language that encompasses these qualifies has to be rooted in rigorous practical and technical training and in a no less rigorous intellectual framework. The artist also takes an explicit critical stance on the kind of thinking embodied by the attitude of rapid consumption that often characterizes the contemporary art world.

The density and opacity of Marshall's history paintings and installations are brilliantly deconstructed by Terrie Sultan in her essay "This Is the Way We Live." Sultan dives with gusto into the paintings' complex narratives, exploring their sources, whether the art of the past and particularly the Old Masters, or African and African-derived visual languages such as Nigerian nsibidi, Cuban anafuorama, and Haitian veve. In decoding Marshall's visual language, she reveals further articulations with pop culture and music that permeate the large history paintings, thus creating a framework akin to a spider web. Sultan responds with textual density to the juxtaposed semantic layers of the paintings. Her research into Marshall's iconography and materials and her analysis of his political and social engagement are carefully balanced with references to his sophisticated formal language. The traditional chronological presentation is well justified by the historical content of the narratives and the sense of stylistic progression.

Fragments of the conversation between Jaffa and Marshall are interspersed throughout the color plates and presented in thematic sequences. Their candid exchange about important themes in Marshall's work--the legacy of the Civil Rights movements, social and racial violence, the use of metaphors and allegories in the paintings--is an interesting counterpart to Terrie Sultan's essay. It clarifies Marshall's philosophy about art as product, process, and philosophy and further explores the references to American history. Past events are never evoked with nostalgia, but reveal the tension with the present, a dynamic integral to the paintings. History is posited as a shifting paradigm, a perspective that allows the artist to constantly revise his own approach to art making. The history of art, for example, is seen as a collection of ideas and concepts from which one is free to borrow and which can be transformed.

Marshall's "Notes on Career and Work" mixes biographical information with analytical statements, and reviews some of his most important series of works: The Garden Project, Mementos, The Lost Boys. Recollections of the artist's early childhood highlight his extraordinary focus and dedication during his formative years. Marshall also talks about Charles White and the older artist's impact in terms of Marshall's artistic choices, his classical training, and his emphasis on content-based work.