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Course: The Seeing America Project > Unit 8
Lesson 3: 1870-now- Winslow Homer, Taking Sunflower to Teacher
- Harry Fonseca, Two Coyotes with Flags
- When department stores were new: women in the American city
- Hale Woodruff, The Banjo Player
- A beacon of hope, Aaron Douglas's Aspiration
- Vertis Hayes, The Lynchers
- Thelma Streat, Girl with Bird
- Beauford Delaney's portrait of Marian Anderson
- Barbara Zucker, Mix, Stir, Pour (White Floor Piece)
- Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Cleaning the museum—maintenance art
- Ben Shahn, Contemporary American Sculpture
- Kerry James Marshall, Our Town
- Stefanie Jackson, Bluest Eye
- Amy Sherald, Precious Jewels by the Sea
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Kerry James Marshall, Our Town
Kerry James Marshall's "Our Town" presents a fresh perspective on African American life. Bright colors and common scenes challenge old narratives, spotlighting the richness of Black suburban life. Marshall's art invites a deeper understanding of American society, pushing past stereotypes. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(soft piano music) - [Narrator #1] We're in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and we're looking at a large painting by Kerry James Marshall, called Our Town. And there's no missing the title. - [Narrator #2] Emblazoned
right across the top, you have, Our Town,
and this is a reference to Thornton Wilder's play from
1938, also called, Our Town. And it's all about this
average American town. And he's addressing the
assumption in that play that the average American town is going to be populated by white people. - [Narrator #1] And
that's one of the things that is important to
the artist to address, the assumption of whiteness in America, and also the lack of presence of Black people in the history of art. So asserting that presence. - [Narrator #2] And I think
he makes that presence of Blackness very apparent. When he paints figures, he's
not painting brown figures, he's painting Black figures. He is mixing together
very vivid black colors. - [Narrator #1] So we look up at Our Town and we notice bluebirds carrying ribbons. And then behind that, the
sun that seems to be rising, the rays of light that come from it. There's something very cartoonish. - [Narrator #2] It is
beautiful. It's Disney-esque. The bluebirds of happiness. If you look to the right in the backyard, you have a pool, and a swing set, and the white picket fence, all of these things that we
associate with perfect suburbia. - [Narrator #1] And the housewife who stands waving to the children with an apron on and a skirt. This sense of 1950s nostalgia. - [Narrator #2] And even the two children that are in the front, that feels like it's
straight out of a 1950s Dick and Jane picture book. - [Narrator #1] The red bicycle, the dog who's nipping at their heels. There is a sense of childhood joy here, but there's also discomfort. These figures feel out of place and make me aware of my
assumption of whiteness. So let's talk about these two figures. They are in the center and the
foreground of the painting. They're large and
they're moving toward us. - [Narrator #2] And they
are aware of our presence. This young boy is looking side-eyed at us. The girl is looking more directly at us, but she's also holding
up a Black Power fist. - [Narrator #1] It feels to me as if everything begins to come
apart as we move further down, especially toward the
left part of the canvas. - [Narrator #2] You
have the perfect scene, but we're pressing at the seams here. The O in Our for Our Town
is not fully painted in. You also have the painting in the front, especially on the left hand side that is not totally complete. We have this vision of the American dream
that is not realized. - [Narrator #1] The area
in the left foreground is so painterly. We see the hand of the artist, we see the drips of the paint, and it stands in such contrast to other parts of the painting that are so carefully finished. - [Narrator #2] You have all
of these different sections where there's information missing, where there's a story that is incomplete. - [Narrator #1] And we could see that in the thought bubble of the little girl. - [Narrator #2] It's going specifically to the red, white and
blue picturesque house as if she is dreaming the American dream, but this is also something
that is incomplete. This is a promise that
is not delivered on, or at least not delivered
on to all people. - [Narrator #1] And there are other ways in which things are
unfinished or incomplete. We can look at the yellow ribbons tied around the trunks
of the trees that tell us that this family has someone perhaps who's serving in the military and they're waiting for him to come home. And then we have this
juxtaposition that's disconcerting of the difference between
the house on the right and it's perfectness in terms of its alignment
to the American dream. And these small houses on the
left that are close together, that lack windows, that aren't
part of this American dream. - [Narrator #2] These are
clearly lower-income houses than what we have depicted on the right. - [Narrator #1] And we
know that this painting is part of a series that Marshall did called the Garden Project Series, and did spend a little bit of time as a child in a housing project. And those were filled with
utopian promises of community. And we all know what happens in the 1970s, and the violence and poverty that happened in those housing projects. - [Narrator #2] In some ways, Kerry James Marshall is
looking at his own childhood. And the fact that when he was growing up, and when he did live in
these housing projects, he saw it as this really wonderful thing. But he is also creating
this work in the mid '90s, and he's looking back
at the reality of that. - [Narrator #1] It's hard not to feel a sense of questioning what
belongs, what doesn't belong. - [Narrator #2] I think that these kids are setting this up for us. They are staring out at us very directly. There's clearly a sense of unease, and it's not totally clear
when you walk up to this. Are we, the viewer, who
are being stared at? Are we out of place? - [Narrator #1] There's a
complexity of looking and race that's tangled up together. And reminds me of the tangle of yellow ribbons behind the children. (soft piano music)