Salina Art Center

Artist Talk with Kerry James Marshall

John Brown’s Body:  The Representation of Black Bodies
as Revolutionary Gesture

Friday, March 5, 6:00–7:00 pm
The Warehouse, 149 S. 4th Street

                                 

SALINA, KANSAS – The Salina Art Center invites you to a free, public talk by acclaimed American artist Kerry James Marshall on Friday, March 5, from 6:00–7:00 pm at The Warehouse, 149 S. 4th Street. Titled John Brown’s Body: The Representation of Black Bodies as Revolutionary Gesture, Marshall’s presentation will explore his ongoing investigation of African American identity and culture in the United States.

A nationally renowned painter, installation artist, and filmmaker, Marshall reflects and approaches African American culture, identity, and history from the Civil Rights to today, drawing from and weaving a history of black experience into his narratives. The artist states the subject of his art stems from the social climate of his youth: “You can’t be born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1955 and grow up in South Central Los Angeles near the Black Panthers headquarters and not feel like you’ve got some kind of social responsibility….That determined a lot of where my work was going to go.” While based on a broad range of art-historical references, from Renaissance history painting to black folk art, from El Greco to Charles White, a striking aspect of his paintings is the emphatically black skin tone of his figures; a development the artist says emerged from an investigation into the invisibility of
blacks in America and the unnecessarily negative
connotations associated with darkness.

Born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama, and educated at the Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, Marshall lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. In 1997, he was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and in 2004, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago organized a major retrospective of his work. Marshall also appeared in the premiere series of the acclaimed PBS program Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century.

Kerry James Marshall’s visit to Salina is co-sponsored by the Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University; the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas; and the
Salina Art Center.

BE SOCIAL
Salina Art Center members are invited to a pre-talk cocktail reception with the artist from 5:00–6:00 pm at The Warehouse.

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For more information regarding Kerry James Marshall’s talk contact the Salina Art Center at 785-827-1431, or visit salinaartcenter.org.  The Art Center is located at 242 S. Santa Fe, Salina, Kansas.  Business office hours are from 9:00 am–5:00 pm, Monday through Friday.  Art Center galleries are open from noon–5:00 pm, Wednesday through Saturday, and 1:00–5:00 pm on Sunday.