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| Kerry James Marshall, Plunge, 1992, Acrylic and collage on canvas, 87 x 109 inches. Collection of Geri and Mason Haupt. © Kerry James Marshall. Image via artfixdaily.com. |
June
28 – December 07, 2013
6th Street and Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, DC
From the National
Gallery of Art web site:
One of the most celebrated painters currently working in the
United States, Kerry James Marshall (b. 1955) has exhibited widely in both this
country and around the world. His work explores the experiences of African
Americans and the narratives of American history that have often excluded black
people. Drawing upon the artist’s prodigious knowledge of art history and the
African diaspora, his paintings combine figurative and abstract styles and
multiple allusions, drawing from “high” and “low” sources.
In 2010, the National Gallery acquired Marshall’s Great
America (1994), a depiction of four figures in a boat exiting an
amusement park Tunnel of Love. Including 10 paintings and more than 20
drawings, this exhibition—Marshall’s first in Washington—explores a sequence of
works that both precede and follow Great America, affording a context
for its powerful imagery. The dominant theme of these works is the transport of
African slaves to America in the Middle Passage—the second or “middle” leg of
the triangular trade of manufactured goods, slaves, and crops that transpired
between Europe, Africa, and the American colonies from the colonial period
until the middle of the 19th century. Marshall’s works explore the economic,
sociological, and psychological aftermath of this foundational episode of US
history. In his art, the past is never truly past: history exerts a constant,
often unconscious pressure on the living.
(Film series curated by Kerry James Marshall)
(Washington Post
article)
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