“I don’t believe in hope,” Kerry James Marshall said in a recent interview with Wyatt Mason in the NYTimes. “I believe in action. If I’m an apostle of anything: There are always going to be complications, but to a large degree, everything is in your hands.” For students and young painters questioning the importance of painting during these dark days of Trump, Marshall’s endeavor proves that art can be political, personal, and painterly. His unstretched, mural-sized canvases that depict the lives and history of black Americans are generally addressed on a political and historical level, but his painting chops are just as remarkable. A retrospective of his work, including some recent abstract paintings, is on view through January 29 at the Met Breuer. Don’t miss it.
“Kerry James Marshall: Mastry,” curated by Ian Alteveer. The Met Breuer, Upper East Side, New York, NY. Through January 29, 2017.
Related posts:
Gentrification: Can artists flip Congressional Districts?
Political violence and abstraction: Suzanne McClelland
William Blake: Promulgating his paeans to political revolution and Anglican apostasy
Two Coats of Paint is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution – Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To use content beyond the scope of this license, permission is required.
These are gorgeous paintings and your reproduction of them is top-notch.