Bang

1994

acrylic and collage on canvas

103” x 114”

Kerry James Marshall was born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama. His paint-

ings, drawings, prints, and installations investigate the nuances of Black

culture, deeply rooted in his upbringing amidst the Civil Rights Movement.

Unapologetically asserting Blackness as non-negotiable, Marshall’s mission

is to write Black people into the art historical canon and make the presence

of Black people and culture in the art world “indispensable” and “undeniable.”

To do this, he paints exclusively Black figures in everyday spaces: back-

yards, barber shops, gardens, and parks – cementing their unwavering presence

in the narrative. Mixing seven chromatically different types of black paint,

Marshall renders the skin of his figures with depth, further positing unequivocal, unashamed Blackness.

Likewise, one of Marshall’s most iconic works, Bang (1994), depicts three

Black children in a suburban backyard on the Fourth of July, a little girl

holding an American flag above two boys with their hands over their hearts.

The patriotic symbols, like the flag, words from the Great Seal of the United

States, and a Revolutionary War banner, contend with the clever title. Bang

not only alludes to the obvious Fourth of July fireworks but also to the historical and systemic violence experienced by Black Americans. Marshall’s work also takes from the traditions of Western figurative painting and subverts thehistorical racial bias to, then, change it.

-James Schaffer