美国国家公共电台 NPR Kerry James Marshall: A Black Presence In The Art World Is 'Not Negotiable'

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The artist Kerry James Marshall has a remarkable¹ history. He was born in Birmingham, Ala., and was a little boy when Martin Luther King Jr. was in jail there. Later, his family moved to Los Angeles not long before the Watts² riots. The paintings he makes are both exuberant³ and deep. A retrospective of his work is at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. And NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg says the artist's path onto museum walls has been quite deliberate.

SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE⁴: Kerry James Marshall puts the color black in everything he paints. And he only paints black people.

KERRY JAMES MARSHALL: Well, for an obvious reason (laughter). One of the reasons I paint black people is because I am a black person. And in the history of painting as we come to know it and understand it and appreciate it, there are fewer representations of black figures in the historical record than there are figures of other people - of white figures, let's say.

STAMBERG: He's also determined⁵ to populate museums with black culture.

MARSHALL: That's the idea. The hope was always to make sure these works found their ways into museums so they could exist alongside everything else that people go to the museum to look at, all the other things that people say are the best that can be done.

STAMBERG: 61 years old, relaxed but purposeful in his speaking and thinking, Marshall makes the invisible visible - paintings of daily life, people doing ordinary things, planting gardens, picnicking, getting haircuts.

HELEN MOLESWORTH: I consider this to be Kerry's first great painting. It's called "De Style." And what we're looking at is five black men in a barber shop.

STAMBERG: Helen Molesworth is curator of the MOCA show and exuberant about the barber shop client's massive hair styles - ballooning, swooping⁶. And the barber...

MOLESWORTH: He's got a halo because the barber's a genius. The barber's got mad hands. The barber's got skills, right? The barber is an artist.

STAMBERG: She says on this massive 1993 canvas, Marshall shows he is not fooling around.

MOLESWORTH: He is going to give you an image of blackness, of African-American culture, of daily life that is both rooted in everyday pleasures but also transcendent at the same time.

STAMBERG: A beauty parlor⁷ Marshall painted in 2012 is her favorite. Monumental, again, "School Of Beauty, School Of Culture" is teeming⁸ with riotous⁹ colors and spirited life. It's women's space - little kids playing, curvy ladies posing and preening¹⁰, and their hair.

MOLESWORTH: Oh, there's every kind of hair style in here from people who are going all natural Angela Davis to people who have extensions and cornrows and braids.

STAMBERG: Regal braids and twists, self-adornment, glorification¹¹. Black is indeed beautiful on these knockout canvases.

MOLESWORTH: One of the things that these pictures show us over and over again is that the category of beauty is really large. And if whiteness is the only form of beauty you see, you are operating in a pretty small universe.

STAMBERG: People sometimes get pretty emotional in front of these paintings.

MOLESWORTH: Elated, joyful¹², touch one another. I've seen people kiss in front of Kerry James Marshall paintings. The painting of the beauty parlor is a painting where a lot of people decide to get married in front of this painting. These paintings are emotional. They are filled with love.

STAMBERG: Yeah, but it's not all happy days on these walls. There are funerals of beloved leaders. There are killers¹³, lost boys. There's anger, grief, but always the joyous¹⁴ colors and powerful shapes. Marshall's purposeful display of the spirit and strength of black life can be confusing to white eyes - mine, anyway. His 1994 series "Garden Project" re-imagines the early utopian days of public housing.

MARSHALL: There is a kind of a mixed message. And it has everything to do with what people expect in a painting that's about housing projects.

STAMBERG: He shows lovers strolling on groomed¹⁵ lawns, kids riding bikes. I get that. But in one, a man leans forward on the grass staring at us intently. Behind him, a big welcome sign is smeared¹⁶ with white paint. Blobs of paint drip behind it. In the background, the housing looks like prison. I see deterioration¹⁷ and desperation - get me out of here - in his dead eyes. Kerry James Marshall disagrees. He lived there.

MARSHALL: I know better. I know it's not so despairing. And so what seems to me when I look at his demeanor¹⁸, I see contentment. That's what I see. And the gaze out at the spectator, there's a certain uncertainty¹⁹ about the way he sees himself being perceived by the spectator.

STAMBERG: There is the crux²⁰ of the work - his intentions, his mission to make spectators who come at the idea of public housing with a sense of dread²¹ and yes, pity, to also see the hope and pleasures there. These are not romanticized images. They are vivid, energetic reports on how it is, reports he once installed on the walls of our museums.

The show has already been at the Met in New York and Chicago MOCA. Curator Helen Molesworth says Marshall's ambitions are even bigger. Studying painting and art history, he aims to work at a level as fine as that of Rembrandt, Velazquez, any of the masters.

MOLESWORTH: That's absolutely right. I think very early on Marshall set an extremely high bar for himself. And that bar was to be included among the great painters of Western civilization.

STAMBERG: And he's doing it. His paintings have sold at auction²² for $1 and $2 million. And his works are part of the permanent collections of the Met, the National Gallery, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and more. Marshall's vision and devotion are indeed paying off.

MARSHALL: What you're trying to create is a certain kind of an indispensable presence, where your position in the narrative²³ is not contingent²⁴ on whether somebody likes you or somebody knows you or somebody's a friend or somebody's being generous to you. But you want a presence in the narrative that's not negotiable, that's undeniable.

STAMBERG: In downtown Los Angeles and the Kerry James Marshall show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, I'm Susan Stamberg, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MARVIN GAYE SONG, "WHAT'S GOING ON")

1 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

2 watts   

（电力计量单位）瓦，瓦特( watt的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• My lamp uses 60 watts; my toaster uses 600 watts. 我的灯用60瓦，我的烤面包器用600瓦。
• My lamp uses 40 watts. 我的灯40瓦。

3 exuberant   

adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的

参考例句：

• Hothouse plants do not possess exuberant vitality.在温室里培养出来的东西，不会有强大的生命力。
• All those mother trees in the garden are exuberant.果园里的那些母树都长得十分茂盛。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

6 swooping   

俯冲，猛冲( swoop的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The wind were swooping down to tease the waves. 大风猛扑到海面上戏弄着浪涛。
• And she was talking so well-swooping with swift wing this way and that. 而她却是那样健谈--一下子谈到东，一下子谈到西。

7 parlor   

n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅

参考例句：

• She was lying on a small settee in the parlor.她躺在客厅的一张小长椅上。
• Is there a pizza parlor in the neighborhood?附近有没有比萨店？

8 teeming   

adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注

参考例句：

• The rain was teeming down. 大雨倾盆而下。
• the teeming streets of the city 熙熙攘攘的城市街道

9 riotous   

adj.骚乱的；狂欢的

参考例句：

• Summer is in riotous profusion.盛夏的大地热闹纷繁。
• We spent a riotous night at Christmas.我们度过了一个狂欢之夜。

10 preening   

v.（鸟）用嘴整理（羽毛）( preen的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Will you stop preening yourself in front of the mirror? 你别对着镜子打扮个没完行不行？
• She was fading, while he was still preening himself in his elegance and youth. 她已显老，而他却仍然打扮成翩翩佳公子。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

11 glorification   

n.赞颂

参考例句：

• Militant devotion to and glorification of one's country; fanatical patriotism. 对国家的军事效忠以及美化；狂热的爱国主义。
• Glorification-A change of place, a new condition with God. 得荣─在神面前新处境，改变了我们的结局。

12 joyful   

adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的

参考例句：

• She was joyful of her good result of the scientific experiments.她为自己的科学实验取得好成果而高兴。
• They were singing and dancing to celebrate this joyful occasion.他们唱着、跳着庆祝这令人欢乐的时刻。

13 killers   

凶手( killer的名词复数 )； 消灭…者； 致命物； 极难的事

参考例句：

• He remained steadfast in his determination to bring the killers to justice. 他要将杀人凶手绳之以法的决心一直没有动摇。
• They were professional killers who did in John. 杀死约翰的这些人是职业杀手。

14 joyous   

adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的

参考例句：

• The lively dance heightened the joyous atmosphere of the scene.轻快的舞蹈给这场戏渲染了欢乐气氛。
• They conveyed the joyous news to us soon.他们把这一佳音很快地传递给我们。

15 groomed   

v.照料或梳洗（马等）( groom的过去式和过去分词 )；使做好准备；训练；（给动物）擦洗

参考例句：

• She is always perfectly groomed. 她总是打扮得干净利落。
• Duff is being groomed for the job of manager. 达夫正接受训练，准备当经理。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 smeared   

弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上

参考例句：

• The children had smeared mud on the walls. 那几个孩子往墙上抹了泥巴。
• A few words were smeared. 有写字被涂模糊了。

17 deterioration   

n.退化；恶化；变坏

参考例句：

• Mental and physical deterioration both occur naturally with age. 随着年龄的增长，心智和体力自然衰退。
• The car's bodywork was already showing signs of deterioration. 这辆车的车身已经显示出了劣化迹象。

18 demeanor   

n.行为；风度

参考例句：

• She is quiet in her demeanor.她举止文静。
• The old soldier never lost his military demeanor.那个老军人从来没有失去军人风度。

19 uncertainty   

n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物

参考例句：

• Her comments will add to the uncertainty of the situation.她的批评将会使局势更加不稳定。
• After six weeks of uncertainty,the strain was beginning to take its toll.6个星期的忐忑不安后，压力开始产生影响了。

20 crux   

adj.十字形；难事，关键，最重要点

参考例句：

• The crux of the matter is how to comprehensively treat this trend.问题的关键是如何全面地看待这种趋势。
• The crux of the matter is that attitudes have changed.问题的要害是人们的态度转变了。

21 dread   

vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧

参考例句：

• We all dread to think what will happen if the company closes.我们都不敢去想一旦公司关门我们该怎么办。
• Her heart was relieved of its blankest dread.她极度恐惧的心理消除了。

22 auction   

n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖

参考例句：

• They've put the contents of their house up for auction.他们把房子里的东西全都拿去拍卖了。
• They bought a new minibus with the proceeds from the auction.他们用拍卖得来的钱买了一辆新面包车。

23 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

24 contingent   

adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队

参考例句：

• The contingent marched in the direction of the Western Hills.队伍朝西山的方向前进。
• Whether or not we arrive on time is contingent on the weather.我们是否按时到达要视天气情况而定。