Artist's Talk: Kerry James Marshall

Kerry James Marshall is renowned for his explorations of black culture. Working across a range of media, including painting, sculpture and photography, Marshall has frequently engaged with questions of race and representation, often countering stereotypes in his portraits of black life. Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1955, he has exhibited his work around the world, including a celebrated recent retrospective that travelled from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

As a new London-themed painting by Marshall is displayed at Tate Britain, this talk is a unique chance to hear the artist discuss his career, in conversation with Mark Godfrey, Senior Curator of International Art, Tate. The evening will be introduced by Tate Director Maria Balshaw, and there will also be an opportunity for audience questions and contributions.

With a career spanning almost three decades, Kerry James Marshall is well known for his paintings depicting actual and imagined events from African-American history. His complex and multilayered portrayals of youths, interiors, nudes, housing estate gardens, land- and seascapes synthesize different traditions and genres, while seeking to counter stereotypical representations of black people in society. Marshall also produces drawings in the style of comic books, sculptural installations, photography, and video. As with his paintings, these works accumulate various stylistic influences to address the historiography of black art, while at the same time drawing attention to the fact that they are not inherently partisan because their subjects are black.

Marshall was born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama. He studied at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, earning his B.F.A. in 1978 and an honorary doctorate in 1999.

Currently on view at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, the first major museum survey of the artist’s work, specially focusing on his paintings from the past thirty-five years (through July 3, 2017). The show was first shown at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, followed by the Met Breuer in New York.

This event has been provided by Tate Gallery on behalf of Tate Enterprises LTD​​