In San Francisco, Even The Walls Are Politicized
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/arts/design/08demb.html?pagewanted=all
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"Kerry James Marshall stands before a canvas the size of a movie screen. The milky greens, blues and pinks, rendered in paint-by-number patterns and connect-the-dots figures, seem as if they might swallow him and his id whole. But Mr. Marshall and, he hopes, visitors to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art can hold the Crayola madness in check by studying silhouettes embedded in the landscape.
The two three-story murals depict Mount Vernon and Monticello, the estates of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Planted in Where’s Waldo fashion among the bushes and trees in this childlike maze are outlines of the slaves who maintained the estates of a new nation’s champions of liberty.
“The coloring book stuff seduces people to become engaged and has them acknowledge the subtext of these places at the same time,” said Mr. Marshall, who painted the work over a two-week period last month with a crew of local muralists.
Mr. Marshall, a Chicago artist known for exploring racial identity and black history, said he wants people to acknowledge the contradictions that underlie the veneration of the founding fathers. “I think a more realistic representation is appropriate," he said, rather "than the kind of mythologizing that goes with Jefferson as the author of the Declaration of Independence and Washington as the father of the country.""
The two three-story murals depict Mount Vernon and Monticello, the estates of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Planted in Where’s Waldo fashion among the bushes and trees in this childlike maze are outlines of the slaves who maintained the estates of a new nation’s champions of liberty.
“The coloring book stuff seduces people to become engaged and has them acknowledge the subtext of these places at the same time,” said Mr. Marshall, who painted the work over a two-week period last month with a crew of local muralists.
Mr. Marshall, a Chicago artist known for exploring racial identity and black history, said he wants people to acknowledge the contradictions that underlie the veneration of the founding fathers. “I think a more realistic representation is appropriate," he said, rather "than the kind of mythologizing that goes with Jefferson as the author of the Declaration of Independence and Washington as the father of the country.""
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- groups:
- Politics, Art and Style
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- tags:
- Politics, Art and Style, San Francisco, Race, 5 more
