Kerry James Marshall

Kerry James Marshall spoke at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art last night (May 29, 2008) and, while not a formal lecture, delivered some pretty solid messages, if not exactly what I was expecting. Knowing him previously only from Memento #5 from his Memento series, I was not particularly impressed with his work and more than a little worried his ideas would be centered on socially-resonant art that was not all that engaging. On the contrary, not only did many of his other pieces excite me, but he also presented a very well thought out worldview that was much more dynamic than his "history painting" in the Nelson-Atkins led me to believe. The key concepts Mr. Marshall introduced included the omnipresence of money in the art world, the importance of engaging with the narrative of art history and the necessity of innovation rather than self-expression. The latter two particularly struck me on a personal level as I struggle with the meaning of art. And while he did begin to touch on more abstract issues of meaning/utility and intertextual/intratextual, the very idea that an artist must be aware of the context (both historical and contemporary) moves me to once again embrace Criticism. What is an artist but another note in a progression, an arpeggio of history playing the tunes they want to play but that you can interact with if you work at it. Inspiration only comes when you're working. One of the first things Mr. Marshall said was that he had the advantage of knowing from a very early age that he wanted to make pictures, but unfortunately for him he lacked the natural ability. So the idea that art could be made based on what you know and what its "use" is opened up a huge avenue for him to begin to create a body of work that would be "useful" and could be "deployed" into the network of the (monied) decision-makers in the art world. Perhaps something beyond "sensibility" can be used to decide how to construct the narrative of art history.

Anyway, I might write more on this later, but right now I'm at work and kind of just wanting to go home.