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Kerry James Marshall's Art Analysis

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Kerry James Marshall’s work is informed by his deep appreciation for the history of artistic expression, and profoundly influenced by urban culture, the African-American experience, and civil rights. “What I want to happen when I go to a museum is that expectations of what you find in there are completely altered, so that it’s not commonplace to just see European paintings with European bodies, but it’s also as likely that you will see ... black figures, Asian figures, or Hispanic figures.” Marshal’s art references a number of movements such as Fauvism, abstraction, and perception. He also has a unique way of using of cultural symbolism and pictorial devices that are informed by his own experiences of the world and his avid collecting of artefacts from classical mythology, folklore, African and African-American history, film history, art, literature, posters and comic books. Marshall 's pictures use a …show more content…

While the gate at the entrance to the pool is painted PRIVATE, it is unclear if the diver resides inside this private space—or has been excluded from it. The red cross embodied in the painting — a symbol in a number of his works — takes on multiple connotations; it can be thought of as indicating a state of emergency or an intersection, meaning a place of exchange. It could also possibly be a reference to the amount of foreign aid offered by the USA to African countries, whilst not addressing the problems of current and historical racial tensions and inequalities in their own country. Marshall explained that most of us have a “shallow understanding of histories.” In Plunge, the diver seems apprehensive about taking that plunge which is sometimes representative of how we take on history: “Afrocentricity as backwards one and a half”, explains Marshall. The idea that blacks can take back things stolen from African Americans, the idea that only when you go back can you go

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In Staging Race: Black Performers in Turn of the Century America, author Karen Sotiropoulos sets out to describe black artists and their art as “ constitutive of and emblematic of their own generation” (1). Centered in the years post-Civil War and during the dawn of the Jim Crow laws in the late 19th century, Staging Race focuses on the advancement of African American artists in the flourishing cities in America. Artists held the stage in America’s growing entertainment and commercial sector. However, author Sotiropoulos is meticulously in reminding readers that although there were possibilities for advancements, there were still prevalent struggles among artists. Facing racial violence, segregation, disenfranchisement, and social Darwinism,

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The author, Douglas R. Egerton, has his M.A. and Ph.D. from Georgetown University. His grandparents were slaveholders and believed that slaves were property. He became interested in race relations because of grandparents and the television series “Roots”. He specifically concentrates on race relations in the American South. He is now a history professor at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.

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Although at first glance, the art styles of Mo Willems and Duncan Tonatiuh seem completely different from one another, they actually have a few similarities. Both Willems and Tonatiuh draw their characters into flat spaces. They rarely use perspective to add depth to their drawings. Another similarity is the use of black outlines. Both illustrators outline almost every part of their illustrations with a black stroke.

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This exhibition proposal will focus on Dox Thrash, an African American artist whom heavily focused in the field of printmaking in his art career. This will be targeting audiences who are experienced and novice printmakers, art historians, those wanting to learn more about the carborundum printmaking process and its history and people who are wanting to learn about African American artists. Throughout this, the audience will learn of how Dox Thrash came upon his legendary printmaking method, the importance of his work with his generation of the time, his involvement with the federal Art Project (1936-1939). As we talk more about his contributions to the field, we will see later of how he helped teach young African American artists in his later years of his life. In this presentation we will see 10 of his prints showing his carborundum printmaking process along with a tutorial video/pictures to allow us to see how it worked out.

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Due to unfortunate circumstances, the great injustice of slavery makes up a significant portion of America’s History. In addition following the Civil War,that legacy was expressed through the Jim Crow Laws,which promoted segregation. These new laws

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Accordingly, many people feel that they are more special than the Africans Americans because they have more power. African Americans had to deal with discrimination during WWII, they felt the need to come up with something that could tell other people there equal. When getting through the hardships they had to deal with racism, hatred, and equality. From here on out the African Americans came up with the double victory plan, they want to prove they 're not horrible people. People feel the need to tell them that they don 't belong here because they 're more special than them.

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It was a moment when modern African American culture took people's imagination. According to Coleman, F. (1995), “No one captured visually the essence of African-American life in the 1920s and 1930s as vividly or faithfully as did Archibald Motley” (para. 2). Archibald Motley was a visual artist who took part in that period and expressed his art well. He has paintings from all aspects of his career. From the time he was in college at the Art Institute of

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The Manly Art tells the story of boxing 's origins and the sport 's place in American culture. The book was first published in 1986, the book helped shape the ways historians write about American sport and culture, expanding scholarly boundaries by exploring masculinity as an historical subject and by suggesting that social categories like gender, class, and ethnicity can be understood only in relation to each other. In 2010 it was republished and features a new afterword, the author 's meditation on the ways in which studies of sport, gender, and popular culture have changed in the quarter century since the book was first published. An up-to-date bibliography ensures that The Manly Art will remain a vital resource for a new generation.

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Jacob Lawrence painted the Migration Series in 1941 during the time of the Great Migration in America. Lawrence and others, such as Langston Hughes, have been one of the most prominent artists that portrayed the social commentary of African Americans in the United States during the early 1900s. Lawrence’s sixty panels narrate the historical migration of the numerous African Americans who took the train heading from the South to the North, where they could provide a better life for themselves in the midst of an industrial setting. The depiction of the sixty tempera paintings accompanied by various supporting texts leave an emotional account of this time in history to this day. Jacob Lawrence’s two-dimensional cubistic style of painting throughout this series often

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For example, when Cora reflects on the Declaration of Independence, she realizes that it is false: "The white men who wrote it didn't understand it either, if all men did not truly mean all men. Not if they snatched away what belonged to other people, whether it was something you could hold in your hand, like dirt, or something you could not, like freedom" (Whitehead 119). Cora recognizes that the white men who wrote the Declaration of Independence were not thinking about the freedom and rights of black people, they were only seeking to benefit themselves. The fact that the basic rights of black people are not protected and can be taken away at any moment, makes their chance to achieve the American Dream impossible. For example, when Cora and Molly were on the way to the library, they were stopped by a teamster: "'Master said the only thing more dangerous than a n*gger with a gun, was a n*gger with a book.

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Kehinde Wiley’s After Memling’s Portrait of a Man with a Letter reveals his pointed appropriation of Northern Renaissance Portraiture. By adhering to the fundamental aspects found in Memling’s landscape and composition, Kehinde blatantly incites reference; however, his black male substitute garbed in “street” attire politicizes his work within historical and contemporary contexts. Memling’s depictions are “of…the influential powerful merchant class of his day;” Kehinde aligns his figure with financial esteem to place the black male in a position of empowerment (“Memling”). Wiley identifies a socially undervalued group with historically hegemonic figures; therefore, he directs a Caucasian gaze (indoctrinated by western culture) at a group unjustly

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For instance, the anti-black advocates at St. Landry Parish in Louisiana established rules for their congregation through the means of black codes that restricted the rights and livelihoods of African Americans (Doc 2). Previous to the creation of black codes, slave codes were established, while after Jim Crow Laws were created; all served the purpose to discriminate against the African American race and regenerate white superiority. There was a slave code, black code, and a Jim Crow Law that prohibited intermarriage between whites and blacks; proving to be one of many similar restrictions between the three sets of rules. This shows how there was a social continuity in the lives of African Americans in the South in that they continued to experience restrictive discrimination against their race. Furthermore, social, racial discrimination continued through physical violence.

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791 Words | 4 Pages

While reading “The Trouble with (the Term) Art,” written by Carolyn Dean in the summer of 2006, we are taken through an array of different scenarios that lead us to questions what art really is. Dean explores the idea that the word “art” is used far too often and too habitually, and that as we study the non-Western cultures we need to use much more discretion regarding what we call the different pieces of their culture. Throughout the essay, Dean supports her thesis that we too often categorize non-Western pieces as art by using different examples of how certain non-art pieces were deemed as art throughout the course of their history. Dean does this by using four key examples of how these ancient pieces are inappropriately called art to successfully support her thesis and avoid biases.

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Artwork is all around the world, but is it really worth the resources and time for it? In the essay “Is Art a Waste of Time?” by Ryhs Southan he discusses the purpose of art and explains the group, Effective Altruism. The main argument is that Effective Altruism do not agree with using resources and time on artwork. Effective Altruism is against artwork the resources, and time it uses up that do not contribute to the poor.

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1338 Words | 6 Pages

This text is taken from a lecture that was given by William Morris about the importance of the arts. In this lecture he tries to convince his audience why the arts are beneficial and should be available to not only the wealthy but also ordinary people. He uses personification and imagery in order to make what he is saying more interesting, and also uses inclusive language to appeal to the whole audience. The first paragraph begins with the personification of Science; “And Science - we have loved her well, and followed her diligently, what will she do?”.

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