2022
(American, b. 1955)
Ink and watercolor on paper
Sheet: 60.8 x 47.8 cm (23 15/16 x 18 13/16 in.)
Gift of Agnes Gund 2023.7
© Kerry James Marshall
This drawing is one of numerous paintings, prints, and drawings that Kerry James Marshall created on the theme of Exquisite Corpse beginning in 2021.
For over forty years, Kerry James Marshall has mined the history of painting to address its omission of Black subjects. This drawing belongs to a series based on Exquisite Corpse, a parlor game popular among 1920s Surrealist artists in which participants contribute to a drawing without knowing its subject or appearance. Marshall’s composition features three levels presenting the politician Shirley Chisholm, a snowman, and a fashionably dressed woman with a tiny dog in her bag. Together, they seem intended to serve as a reflection on Black female identity. Marshall specifically avoided providing his own interpretation, leaving each viewer to bring their own meaning to the work.
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