The Crooked Mirror l Louise Steinman’s Blog

Journeys within and beyond

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July 4th 2017

July 4th 2017

A second visit to the Kerry James Marshall show at MOCA, the last weekend before it closes, is a stirring reminder of what an artist can do to deepen our understanding of our country’s tortured race history and as well, its resilience. He does so by including those who have been excluded from the shared narrative, by painting them back into the national story,putting them center-stage into the American storybook, into small towns, into the backyard barbeques in Culver City,CA in the 50’s of my childhood, barbecues in parks to which no African-Americans were invited. To the neat streets-on-a-grid post-war stucco one-story houses in the city where I grew up-- where African-American families were not allowed to buy a home, not allowed to live. It was called a covenant. it was silent.

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