拍品专文
“…one of the things I tried to do, what I really tried to do, at the same time that I reduced their presence or their value, the color value, to an extreme black, was to try and make sure that they all had individual identities… they have very different and individual personalities.” Kerry James Marshall
Kerry James Marshall’s Lost Boys – AKA Black Tony belongs to a powerful series of portraits the artist completed in the early 1990s. The Lost Boys were created in response to an epidemic of violent deaths of young Black men from gun violence. Inspired in part by J.M. Barrie’s children’s story Peter Pan, Marshall transposes Neverland to contemporary America, a place where discrimination, oppression, incarceration, violence, and death deprive young black men and women of the chance to grow up. One of a series of individual portraits, with the present work Marshall brings these shocking statistics to life as we confront, head-on, the individuals affected by violence.
Painted in Marshall’s signature iconographical style, AKA Black Tony features one of Marshall’s Lost Boys. Dominating the composition is the figure of a young Black man, adorned by a halo made up of sweeping curlicues; above him, inscribed in memoriam, is the date 1992. Dressed in a simple yellow t-shirt the subject engages the viewer with his piercing stare. The pose is similar to that of an icon in the early Byzantine church, or even an Egyptian funerary portrait, images which are among some of the earliest known depictions of Black people. This referencing of the past is something that Marshall is keen to acknowledge, even in what is a very contemporary painting. “[As] artists in the late 20th century, we inherit or are the beneficiaries of all the stylistic and conceptual developments that artists from previous generations have handed down to us… I think we simply incorporate it and then find ways to synthesize all of those things into something that none of the artists who preceded us had access to or had an opportunity to achieve” (K.J. Marshall, quoted by C. Rowell, ‘An Interview with Kerry James Marshall, Callaloo, Vol. 21, No. 1, Winter 1998, Baltimore, online).
The blackness with which Marshall imbues his figures is one of the most recognizable, and most significant, aspects of his paintings. “There’s a kind of matter-of-factness about their blackness,” Marshall has said, “which is one of the reasons why I think I make them that extreme. And so then it’s not a question. They’re emphatically what they are; they are black figures” (Ibid.). However, the artist is keen to point out, is that even though they are resolutely Black men, each of his subjects is resolutely an individual and not a stand-in for an entire generation of their peers.
Marshall had always been interested in children’s literature (early in his career, he had wanted to be a children’s book illustrator) and Barrie's story of a group of boys who had never really grown up had personal resonance for him. “…if I apply that concept of being lost in a Never, Never Land to a lot of young black men,” he continued, “where in some cases it wasn’t that they had a willful desire never to grow up, as much as they often never had an opportunity to grow up because there were far too many young black men cut down very early in their lives… so it was thinking about that book and that concept of being lost from Peter Pan and then applying it to a concept of being lost: lost in America, lost in the ghetto, lost in public housing, lost in joblessness, and lost in illiteracy. And all of those things sort of changed…all of those things came together with the fact my brother now seemed to be one of those lost” (ibid.).
The Lost Boys has become one of Kerry James Marshall’s most important bodies of work. Part of his response to his upbringing and the effect that this had on his life, these paintings reflect the experience of a generation and create a bittersweet and complex vision of the modern Black American experience. He adapts the somber and humorous childhood visions for profoundly critical ends, creating a complex and compelling image that is steeped in a sense of lost innocence.
Kerry James Marshall’s Lost Boys – AKA Black Tony belongs to a powerful series of portraits the artist completed in the early 1990s. The Lost Boys were created in response to an epidemic of violent deaths of young Black men from gun violence. Inspired in part by J.M. Barrie’s children’s story Peter Pan, Marshall transposes Neverland to contemporary America, a place where discrimination, oppression, incarceration, violence, and death deprive young black men and women of the chance to grow up. One of a series of individual portraits, with the present work Marshall brings these shocking statistics to life as we confront, head-on, the individuals affected by violence.
Painted in Marshall’s signature iconographical style, AKA Black Tony features one of Marshall’s Lost Boys. Dominating the composition is the figure of a young Black man, adorned by a halo made up of sweeping curlicues; above him, inscribed in memoriam, is the date 1992. Dressed in a simple yellow t-shirt the subject engages the viewer with his piercing stare. The pose is similar to that of an icon in the early Byzantine church, or even an Egyptian funerary portrait, images which are among some of the earliest known depictions of Black people. This referencing of the past is something that Marshall is keen to acknowledge, even in what is a very contemporary painting. “[As] artists in the late 20th century, we inherit or are the beneficiaries of all the stylistic and conceptual developments that artists from previous generations have handed down to us… I think we simply incorporate it and then find ways to synthesize all of those things into something that none of the artists who preceded us had access to or had an opportunity to achieve” (K.J. Marshall, quoted by C. Rowell, ‘An Interview with Kerry James Marshall, Callaloo, Vol. 21, No. 1, Winter 1998, Baltimore, online).
The blackness with which Marshall imbues his figures is one of the most recognizable, and most significant, aspects of his paintings. “There’s a kind of matter-of-factness about their blackness,” Marshall has said, “which is one of the reasons why I think I make them that extreme. And so then it’s not a question. They’re emphatically what they are; they are black figures” (Ibid.). However, the artist is keen to point out, is that even though they are resolutely Black men, each of his subjects is resolutely an individual and not a stand-in for an entire generation of their peers.
Marshall had always been interested in children’s literature (early in his career, he had wanted to be a children’s book illustrator) and Barrie's story of a group of boys who had never really grown up had personal resonance for him. “…if I apply that concept of being lost in a Never, Never Land to a lot of young black men,” he continued, “where in some cases it wasn’t that they had a willful desire never to grow up, as much as they often never had an opportunity to grow up because there were far too many young black men cut down very early in their lives… so it was thinking about that book and that concept of being lost from Peter Pan and then applying it to a concept of being lost: lost in America, lost in the ghetto, lost in public housing, lost in joblessness, and lost in illiteracy. And all of those things sort of changed…all of those things came together with the fact my brother now seemed to be one of those lost” (ibid.).
The Lost Boys has become one of Kerry James Marshall’s most important bodies of work. Part of his response to his upbringing and the effect that this had on his life, these paintings reflect the experience of a generation and create a bittersweet and complex vision of the modern Black American experience. He adapts the somber and humorous childhood visions for profoundly critical ends, creating a complex and compelling image that is steeped in a sense of lost innocence.