Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
October 2018
October 13, 2018–March 25, 2019
Visitors to the Carnegie Museum of Art’s 57th Carnegie International in Pittsburg had the opportunity to see Kerry James Marshall’s epic comic Rythm Mastr (1999–ongoing). The series, which the artist developed in response to the lack of black characters in comics, was first shown during the 1999/2000 Carnegie International as a site-specific installation—when Marshall papered display cases in the museum’s Treasure Room with segments from the series on newsprint—and as installments in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s magazine. "I thought this was a moment to return to Kerry’s first touchstone at the Carnegie where he launched this major body of work," said Ingrid Schaffner, curator of the 57th Carnegie International. Schaffner’s decision to bring Rythm Mastr back into the museum this year is partly in recognition of their acquisition two years ago of Marshall’s painting Untitled (Gallery) (2016), which relates to a body of work that debuted in Look See, the artist’s 2014 solo exhibition at David Zwirner.
"I have had a deep love for comics since my youth," Marshalls says, "and sought a remedy for the absence of black characters in the genre. Beginning with the three overlapping narratives: Rythm Mastr, P-Van, and On The Stroll, the project has expanded other stories to include the daily life of "Black Metropolis." The scope of this work has to achieve the same epic scale because the goal has always been to match the level of complexity achieved in such epic tales as the Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter sagas."
Rythm Mastr is also the subject of an interview published in Artforum in 2000 and an extensive feature published this year in Culture Type. Sections from Rythm Mastr were included in Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, a critically acclaimed retrospective presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Met Breuer in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles from 2016 to 2017. Kerry James Marshall: Works on Paper was on view at The Cleveland Museum of Art through October 21, 2018, as part of the inaugural FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial of Contemporary Art, and Kerry James Marshall: Collected Works continued through at the Rennie Museum in Vancouver through November 3, 218.
History of Painting, the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, was on view at David Zwirner in London through November 10, 2018