Skip to Main Content

Kerry James Marshall, Great America, 1994, acrylic and collage on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of the Collectors Committee

Great America, Marshall (Verbal Description)

This painting reimagines a boat ride into a haunted tunnel at an amusement park as the Middle Passage—the forced journey of slaves from Africa to the Americas. What might in other hands be a work of heavy irony becomes instead a delicate interweaving of the histories of painting and race. The canvas, which is stretched directly onto the wall, creates a screen or backdrop onto which viewers project their own associations triggered by the powerful imagery.

09/30/16