Fresh off the success of Mastry, a touring retrospective of his art, Kerry James Marshall is in the spotlight in the city he’s called home for decades.
Chicago Tonight reports that Marshall’s newest work, a gigantic mural in downtown Chicago, was unveiled this week.
Called "Rushmore," the mural is about half the size of a football field and adorns the one side of the Chicago Cultural Center.
The mural honors 20 women who have helped Chicago become what it is today.
Visitors to the mural will be able to see writer Sandra Cisneros, politician and philanthropist Maggie Daley, media titan Oprah Winfrey, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, dancer Ruth Page, Poetry magazine founder Harriet Monroe, the artist’s wife, actress and Goodman Theater cofounder Cheryl Lynn Bruce and more featured as faces on tree-like totems stretching up to a yellow and blue sun.
Marshall told the Chicago Tribune that he wanted to create “a park-like forest scene, some sort of green space” that was “more meaningful than just some pictures of some trees.”
Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, praised Marshall’s work, calling it “a tremendous gift for the city,” and noting “there’s poetry to the fact that it’s [on] a building that was saved by a woman, ‘Sis’ Daley.”
In the days when many of Chicago’s Greco-Roman masterpieces where being destroyed in favor of Mies Van Der Roe-esque postmodern black boxes, Daley said enough was enough, and used her political capital to make sure the building wasn’t torn down.
It was important to Marshall that his mural honor women to correct for a mistake he feels cities often make.
“I thought, well, in the history of monuments you have very few that represent women, but in the history of Chicago you have very many women that played key roles in establishing culture here.”
The work of those women, including Daley, also helped to establish Marshall, whose very first solo show was at the Cultural Center in 1990.
Emanuel believes Marshall’s decision to include the 20 women is just another example of his artistic genius.
“Before anyone else knew it was the Year of the Woman, Kerry James Marshall saw that, which is what makes a great artist. They’re able to see around corners and have us see things that are actually present, but not visible,” the mayor said.
Even better for the mayor and the city’s taxpayers, Marshall painted the giant work for the low, low price of $1, despite having just set a record for the sale of his work last month when his Still Life with Wedding Portrait sold for $5.04 million.
The low fee was a ”civic obligation thing,” according to Marshall, who joked that he agreed to it in “a moment of weakness.”
The artist said that he’s looking forward to finishing up work on the piece, and that he’s ready to move on to new challenges. He hopes that this mural will help to “bring the living culture of the Cultural Center, and the living culture of the city, to life again.”
