Chicago-based artist Kerry James Marshall and MOCA Chief Curator Helen Molesworth engage in conversation on the occasion of Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, Marshall’s first major retrospective in the United States. As a young artist, Marshall decided to paint only Black figures, unequivocally pursuing Black beauty in an attempt to infiltrate the traditionally white space of the museum. Marshall and Molesworth discuss the artist’s “mastery” of representational figure painting and the ways in which his work reframes essential concepts such as freedom, beauty, and dignity.
