Phillips is honored to support the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago's major survey of Kerry James Marshall: Mastry. This sponsorship forms one part of our global program of arts partnerships in 2016 and affirms our commitment to supporting the world's preeminent museums and public galleries.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and witness to the Watts riots in 1965, Marshall has long been an inspired and imaginative chronicler of the African American experience. Best known for his large-scale paintings featuring black figures, defiant assertions of blackness in a medium in which African Americans have long been "invisible men," Marshall's interrogation of art history covers a broad temporal swath stretching from the Renaissance to 20th-century American abstraction. He critically examines the Western canon through its most canonical forms: the historical tableau, landscape, and portraiture. His work also touches upon vernacular forms such as the muralist tradition and the comic book, as seen in his comics-inspired Rythm Mastr drawings (1999-ongoing), in order to address and correct the "vacuum in the image bank"—in other words, to make the invisible visible.

The exhibition focuses primarily on Marshall's paintings made over the last 35 years, from his seminal inaugural statement Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self (1980) to his most recent explorations of African American history.

Visit MCA Chicago to learn more. #Mastry

This exhibition is co-organized with The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.