The readings on the life of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and contemporary artist Kerry J. Marshall showed many parallels in the way they both used their work to improve the status of African Americans in society. Douglass determined early on in his life that education was a means of bettering his own life as well as accomplishing his goals in becoming an abolitionist. Despite the traumas and difficulties he endured as a slave, he aimed to become not simply a freeman who would go about one's own life but a freeman with a clear purpose - to speak out against slavery and change as many minds as possible toward the cause of abolitionism. Douglass also wrote and published his own autobiography and a weekly periodical against the institution of slavery. His life's work is truly admirable because he was able to take the painful experiences of his previous life as a slave and use it as a case against slavery in his speeches around the country. It is clear that he wanted to make something useful and beneficial for the cause of abolitionism out of his own life.
When learning of the way that Douglass was able to transform his own life from a slave to an activist, orator and leader against slavery, I am reminded of what it takes to go from leading a passive life to one that is active and questioning the status quo. In this regard, there is a great deal of similarity between Douglass's activism as an abolitionist and the artwork of Kerry J. Marshall. Marshall, like Douglass, was shaped by his upbringing and exposure to the injustices of segregation and racism. Marshall says “You can’t be born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955 and grow up in South Central [Los Angeles] near the Black Panthers headquarters, and not feel like you’ve got some kind of social responsibility. You can’t move to Watts in 1963 and not speak about it. That determined a lot of where my work was going to go.” Marshall's work such as the murals at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, questions the "greatness" of the slave-owning founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. He also uses black skin tone in a many of his paintings causing one to see how absent black skin tone is from much of the Western canon of art. This "invisibility" of blacks is one of Kerry's major investigations and brings an activist approach to his artwork by making a critique of the status quo. By bringing awareness on the fact that blacks are often marginalized and made invisible in society as well as in art history, Kerry uses his art as his podium for speaking up for African- Americans in the same spirit as Frederick Douglass.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I love how you compared Kerry Marshall and Fredrick Douglass. I agree with your quote "When learning of the way that Douglass was able to transform his own life from a slave to an activist, orator and leader against slavery, I am reminded of what it takes to go from leading a passive life to one that is active and questioning the status quo." It is true that we tend to forget that we need to work on making our lives from a passive life to an active life and not sit around watching because it is the easiest thing to do. I loved the information and the connections you had in your blog!
ReplyDeleteI also liked how you compared Douglas with Marshall and how they were both committed to improve the status of African Americans. Furthermore,I liked how you mentioned that Douglas could have lived a simple life when achieving his freedom but rather chose to become an abolitionist. This was important because so many of his contemporaries when achieving their freedom, or had family members who were slaves owned slaves themselves. For some reason, this is more disturbing than anything else I read because they are advancing their lifestyles by burdening others of their own race, so it was refreshing to read about abolitionists who wanted a social change.
ReplyDelete