Photo by John Berens. Courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

Kerry James Marshall, "Untitled" (2008). Acrylic on PVC panel, 28 3/4 x 24 3/4 in.

October 2008 Reviews

Manifesta 7

Jeff Koons

Chantal Akerman

Painting: Now and Forever, Part II

Erkka Nissinen

There is No There There

Elaine Duigenan

Peter Saul

John Massey

Bridget Riley

Pipilotti Rist

Thomas Helbig

Armando Andrade Tudela

Gary Hume

Marine Hugonnier

Kerry James Marshall Loss of Private Collection of African-American Art Mourned Light and Grace Triumph in Renzo Piano’s Chicago Debut Basel Grins and Bears Pre-Boom Prices History Painting Presidential Murals Go on Display in San Francisco Temporary Sol LeWitt Wall Drawings Painted Over at SFMOMA Deals and Steals at the Armory Preview

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In 2002, the Studio Museum in Harlem curator Thelma Golden followed up “Freestyle”—her show of conceptually oriented work by younger African-American artists—with an exhibition of conventional figurative painting titled “Black Romantic.” For his show at Jack Shainman, Kerry James Marshall lifts Golden’s title, thereby reflecting his own sophisticated navigation of the line between the artworld and populism. The title also indicates Marshall’s concern with the sentimental, with which his show was imbued, along with just enough irony and charged symbolism to give the work a sharp political edge. Five pieces, each titled Vignette (2005 and 2008), feature from different angles a man joyfully lifting a woman above him while surrounded by saccharine pink hearts, or else standing next to a black fence decorated with a clenched fist or a panther face. Two untitled paintings (2008) present a couple strolling a picturesque beach. Marshall undercuts the idyllic scene by making the fit between lovers and landscape subtly incongruous—clouds that are a little too perfect, a string of barbed wire in the sand. Typical of Marshall’s recent output, the exhibition contains work in a variety of media and genres, including drawing and watercolor. Small metal medallions imprinted with the faces of mostly anonymous African Americans cover an untitled boat installation (2003–05) that evokes the Middle Passage as well as its resultant diasporic culture and history. Among the strongest works are three portraits of imagined artists partially eclipsed by painting palettes impeccably daubed with color—a rare moment of “pure” abstraction in Marshall’s socially committed artistic oeuvre. With implacable faces painted in Marshall’s purposefully too dark style, these artists assert a practice that also threatens to blot them out.

"Kerry James Marshall" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' October 2008 Table of Contents.