Kerry James Marshall is flavor of the month in the art world right now with "Mastry" at Met Breuer in New York. It's a singular occasion-- the first black American honored in this way since Jacob Lawrence in 1960 at the Brooklyn Museum, if one does not count Romare Bearden, primarily a collagist, at the National Gallery of Art in WDC in 2003.
Last century painting was declared "dead," a mantra embraced by the art world that allowed it to veer towards Duchamps' philosophy that everything could be art. I haven't seen this show yet but I did see several of the recent canvases and drawings at the National Gallery of Art in 2013. There is clear narrative, clear intent and lots of language in these works. Marshall's retrospective proves that painting is alive and well if an artist is willing to work but above all, has something to say.
In the reviews, there is a lot of focus on the importance of his black figures and contemporary black life referencing art history and the void these works fill in traditional Western Art. Many talk about how adept he is at storytelling and interspersing references to the famous painters he admires within the confines of these magnificent black images. They mention his obsession with skill but seem to all end up describing the images and pointing out references to the great white painters they contain. One reviewer thought the show got too much buildup and needed editing. I suspect she (like many others will inevitably do) gave the work a superficial glance and just looked at the pictures instead of looking at the painting, painting being a verb.
Looking at how the images are rendered reveals an expert's understanding and manipulation of all the techniques developed by painters over the last century to create a cohesive picture that makes one focus on the work's narrative and intent. Who else has done this? Cecily Brown has been admired for creating figurative paintings that look like abstract expressionism; Marshall's work is so subtle, you might not see these inclusions without dismissing the narrative to focus on the composition and architecture of the work. Reviews that do not discuss his technical prowess in depth imply that he is important simply because he made black figures powerful in western art.
Marshall is doing soooo much more for western art than filling the color void. He's raising the bar for all artists everywhere to make art that introduces us to new ways of seeing with the tools we've always had at our disposal. It's a challenge for both representational and abstract painters.
If the art world continues to focus on how skillfully Marshall paints black people in situ, and keeps declaring that he is a great black painter, it loses an opportunity to take a stab at the institutional racism embedded in art history and the contemporary art world. This is an opportunity to alter the narrative of what makes a painter great and take us back into an arena where we appreciate and value the skill of execution over subject that can bring real criticism back into the art world.
Like Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Picasso or DeKooning, Kerry James Marshall is not a great black artist. He is a great artist period.
