Njideka Akunyili Crosby Untitled, 2011. Estimate: $40,000-60,000.
New Now at Phillips New York, 4 March.
In their personal preparatory works on paper, Kerry James Marshall and Njideka Akunyili Crosby explore themes of identity through intimacy and the black American experience. In an effort to rectify the absence of black subjects in the Western art-historical canon, these artists introduce new figures with intimate narratives and complex social motifs.
Kerry James Marshall Preliminary Sketch for Black Painting, 2002. Estimate: $30,000-40,000.
Kerry James Marshall’s Preliminary Sketch for Black Painting, 2002, depicts the original composition rendered in his thought-provoking Black Painting, held in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In this work, Marshall voyeuristically captures a couple’s seemingly private and passionate moment protected under the warmth of their covers. However, the apparent serenity of this intimate vignette belies the brutal tragedy of its historical underpinnings. Here, Marshall actually illustrates a December night in 1969 when Chicago Police invaded the home of Fred Hampton, the former chairman of Illinois’ Black Panther Party and subsequently murdered him and his pregnant wife. Unarmed and vulnerable, the pictured couple represents the unfortunate yet prevalent mistreatment of black Americans even in the most unlikely and secure of spaces. Finalizing the resulting painting with enveloping shades of black and blue, Marshall displays a pitch-black room with barely visible figures, simultaneously present and invisible, symbolizing a paralyzing dichotomy faced by many people of color in American society.
It just seems so relevant, that feeling of... invisibility when you move here. That's why I think representation is so important, that feeling of:
Do you exist if you don't see yourself?
— Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Refusing to accept invisibility, Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s work readily showcases her own personal experience as a Nigerian immigrant living in America. Set in an intimate interior, Untitled, 2011 depicts the artist and her husband making love as her bolded black silhouette hovers over his abstracted white-skinned posterior. Parallel to Marshall’s persistence in carving out a place for black figures in art history, Crosby attempts to extinguish persisting and destructive stereotypes about African Americans. Through sensitive and personal representation, she encourages the education and understanding of different cultures. Crosby’s sensual imagery symbolizes the harmonious intersection of the facets of her identity, a union that she wishes to promote in contemporary society. Completing the final iteration of this subject in Thread, 2012, Crosby quilted her self-portrayed figure with transferred pop-culture images and historical portraits that manifest and represent her experiences.
Kerry James Marshall’s and Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s seminal works on paper stand powerfully independent while also serving as inspiration for their respective paintings. In their production, Preliminary Sketch for Black Painting and Untitled embody the intimate imagery of their compositions by welcoming the viewer into Marshall’s and Crosby’s respective artistic processes. Rigorously yet sensitively representing the black American experience, these works tell a multi-dimensional story of relationship and identity.