When I started, I was aware of using the black as a rhetorical device. It's understanding that black people come in a… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
People ask me why my figures have to be so black. There are a lot of reasons. First, the blackness is a… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
In some places you can find an extreme blackness used as a descriptive. I also take into account historical realities that some… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
Part of what I am dealing with, with this blackness, is asking the question, "Where are those black people, who are as… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
I tend to think having that extreme of color, that kind of black, is amazingly beautiful...and powerful. What I was thinking to… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
The privileged position of whiteness doesn't allow for someone with one drop of Negro blood to be considered white, which allows whiteness… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
[My picture A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self ] was a way of demonstrating that there… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
What I preserved in the figures [at Invisible Man] are those white eyes and white teeth, because that's still connected to the… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
There's nothing more special than intellect and labour that makes painting work. There's no magic there; it's information, and it's work. — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
When art works travel from place to place, what you have is the opportunity to engage with the intellect of another person who has… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
I stumbled upon Charles White purely by chance while looking through a book 'Great Negroes, Past and Present' in the library at Forty-Ninth Street… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
The lighter the skin, the more acceptable you are. The darker the skin, the more marginalised you become. I want to demonstrate that you… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
Artwork operates on two different levels: On one level there's artwork as a mode of expressivity, and then there's the other side, where the… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
One of the things I recognized early on, doing whatever studies of black history I have, is that even though black folks were transported… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
If you walk into any magazine store, I guarantee that nine out of 10 covers will feature white, blonde, blue-eyed, slim women because that's… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
For black people who are really dark - and a lot of black people were averse to be dark skinned - it was believed… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
Before people outside of the Western European tradition started asking to be in there, the people who were accumulating objects for the museum were… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
What I hope 'Mastry' ends up doing is completely undermining or doing away with the notion that artists are a savant: that they do… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
My dream was always to be in museums. It's a big and important milestone and a fulfillment of one of my primary ambitions. — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
In [Ralph] Ellison's case, it's more psychological than it is phenomenal, and it's conditioned by anger, animosity, and lack of desire to engage with… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
When I started, I was aware of using the black as a rhetorical device. It's understanding that black people come in a wide range… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
No one has a right to occupy the privileged position all the time, so it should be contested. It should always be messy in… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
![“[My picture A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self ] was a way of demonstrating that there was a broad range of possibilities and fairly unlimited utility for a black figure that didn't have to comprise its blackness in order to preserve a place in the field of representation.” quote by Kerry James Marshall](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/b2d/kerry-james-marshall-5157_art_my-picture-a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a_2641070.jpg)
![“What I preserved in the figures [at Invisible Man] are those white eyes and white teeth, because that's still connected to the way in which blackness, in the extreme, has been stigmatized and the way it was often joked that you couldn't see black people in the dark until they had their eyes open…” quote by Kerry James Marshall](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/19a/kerry-james-marshall-5157_black_what-i-preserved-in-the-figures-at-invis_2863321.jpg)
