Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Chicago-based artist Kerry James Marshall is best known for his large-scale paintings that recall the grandeur and monumentality of traditional history painting. Using a figurative style and imagery of African Americans in urban, suburban, and interior settings, Marshall’s work has often addressed social issues stemming from the Civil Rights movement, evoking the nostalgia and idealism of that era. His exhibition at the MCA will consist of a major new body of work in painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, and video that demonstrates Marshall’s ongoing engagement with ideas and images drawn from Black history, identity, and cultural tradition.

The exhibition also includes work by three additional artists of different generations– Senga Nengudi, Damon Lamar Reed, and L. Eduardo. Kerry James Marshall: One True Thing, Meditations on Black Aesthetics is curated by Elizabeth Smith, James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator with Tricia Van Eck, Curatorial Coordinator. It will travel throughout the U.S. to institutions including Miami Art Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland, and Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama.