"Kerry James Marshall: Mastry"

As an African American man who was born in Alabama before the passage of the Civil Rights Act and witnessed the Watts riots in Los Angeles, Kerry James Marshall is acutely aware of what it means to be black in America. His paintings confront race head-on, incorporating black figures into scenes that would historically exclude subjects who are not white. The Museum of Contemporary Art's survey of Marshall looks back at 35 years of his work, including his iconic 1980 piece, Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self.